• Sun Reaches Maximum Phase in 11-Year Solar Cycle • The Sun is stirring from its latest slumber. As sunspots and flares bubble from the Sun’s surface, representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), and the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel have announced the Sun has reached its solar maximum period. • Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/ Music Credit: “Society News Bed Instrumental” by Jean-Francois Berger [SACEM] via Universal Production Music | Astronomy Nati

Solar Minimum versus Solar Maximum | NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory FriendsofNASA.org: Our Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star—a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium—at the center of our solar system. It is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth and our solar system’s only star. The height of the Sun’s activity cycle, known as solar maximum, is a time of greatly increased solar storm activity. Sunspots, eruptions called solar flares, and coronal mass ejectio