We still don't know the nature of the sun. Astrophysicists, Solar Physicists really are still learning how to observe.
We have only theory about the inner workings of this and all stars, and what we observe tell us our theories are wrong. We look at particle emissions
and find too much of some and not enough of another type of subatomic particle to support the reactions at the core we think are happening. So we can
only observe and make as educated a guess as we can about its nature.
We only have a handful of solar probes
since the first in 1960. And
we still are only scratching the surface understanding the data.
100 years of data is nothing in time for a solar system. The solar max cycles we have observed are also on a larger cycle we may just be beginning to
Imagine a spring around a larger spring, that is around a larger spring.
The cycle I am talking about is the smaller one on the bigger one.
This is an illustration of how our star goes around the galaxy. It is on a cycle itself, but we see how the planets wrap around the path of the Sun?
Well the sun does the same oscillation as it goes around the galaxy too.
Just to explain cycles, and that there are cycles on cycles on cycles.
The cycles we are talking about are cycles of activity that seem to repeat every 12 years, until now. It may just be a cycle one order of magnitude
larger, say 500-1000 years, and it is not unusual but we have only 100 years of data and so it looks anomalous. It might set Earth changes in motion,
but other than that it may have happened for thousands or millions of years this way.
The implications of such events are a mystery too. We have seen fluctuations in the suns energy in the geologic records, but I am not sure that cross
discipline data has been realized yet by formal science, so we will have to wait for that correlative data to be added.
Coronal Mass Ejections likely have cycles we can't pattern yet also. So we can only watch and keep calibrating our understanding with
Comparing sizes of sunspots and volumes of energetic emission in a solar body without knowledge is just tabloid science unless you can bring it
together. Unfortunately science is still too segmented and compartmentalized to make the big discoveries we may need to survive changes.
This might seem odd, but I know a solar physicist who has rarely looked through a telescope. That's because observational astronomy is different than
I have a feeling however that if such a solar physicists spent time looking at the sun with a telescope (using HA and other filters) they could
advance their understanding. Some do, but not enough. Mix it up dudes!
We need to get our 'sci' together.