From NASA

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From the NASA site:

 

March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots

have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is

utterly quiet.

 

Like the quiet before a storm.

 

This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most

intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team

led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research

(NCAR). " The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the

previous one, " she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a

burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.