The Solar Minimum

        On June of this year, NASA announced the coming sun "solar minimum", which is the period of lower sun activity characterized by less sunspots and solar flares. The sun has about 11 years cycle of maximum and minimum activity. In the solar maximum the sunspots are abundant while in the solar minimum sunspots decline.  According to NASA, the sunspots counts were high in 2014, but now they are decreasing. It is expected a lower activity of the sun on 2019 - 2020..." While intense activity such as sunspots and solar flares subside during solar minimum, that doesn’t mean the sun becomes dull. Solar activity simply changes form. "  Many people are worry because the solar minimum can cause a "mini ice age".

        An important event during the "solar minimum" is the increased galactic cosmic rays that reach the earth because the weak sun's magnetic shield.  As stated in Spaceweather.com "...in 2017 as the solar cycle shifts from Solar Maximum to Solar Minimum. More and more cosmic rays are therefore reaching our planet."  According to Zero hedge the US government is preparing for the solar minimum with an Executive Order released in 2016 “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events”.  http://bit.ly/2tiJgty  

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 NASA Science Beta ( Jun 27, 2017)

                         Solar Minimum is Coming

       High up in the clear blue noontime sky, the sun appears to be much the same day-in, day-out, year after year.But astronomers have long known that this is not true. The sun does change. Properly-filtered telescopes reveal a fiery disk often speckled with dark sunspots. Sunspots are strongly magnetized, and they crackle with solar flares—magnetic explosions that illuminate Earth with flashes of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation. The sun is a seething mass of activity. ... read more  https://go.nasa.gov/2uk9eum 

  References 

•  NASA Science beta "Solar Minimun is comming" https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/solar-minimum-is-coming 
• Spaceweather "Cosmic rays intensify": May 2017 http://news.spaceweather.com/category/cosmicrays/ 
• The Watchers "Intensifyng cosmic rays, grand solar minimum and earth's climate" https://watchers.news/2017/05/13/intensifying-cosmic-rays-grand-solar-minimum-and-climate/     

                                           Social entrepreneur  @doloresreyes