Word: peak
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...great flare, and its coterie of sunspots, was an unmistakable signal. It heralded the imminent arrival of the solar maximum: the period every eleven years or so when the sun reaches its peak levels of activity and pointedly reminds earth dwellers of its awesome power. At maximum...
Because the previous maximum occurred in late 1979, astronomers had targeted 1991 as the year when solar frenzy would again peak. But the sun is notably capricious. While the intervals between maximums average eleven years, some have been as short as seven, others as long as 17. Ever since the sun began revving up three years ago toward the next maximum, its activity has mounted with unprecedented speed...
...early phase. It's got quite a way to go." Solar buffs are speculating it might approach the violence reached by the 1957-58 maximum, which touched off five disruptive geomagnetic superstorms and vivid auroral displays. Says astronomer Donald Neidig at the National Solar Observatory outpost on Sacramento Peak, near Sunspot, N. Mex.: "We can't rule out a record breaker...
...closing on their own. A surge of flare-induced current was blamed by Hydro- Quebec officials for shutting down the power company's system and blacking out parts of Montreal and the province of Quebec for as long as nine hours. These startling phenomena were shrugged off by Sacramento Peak's Neidig. "A really big flare," he says, "can produce enough energy to supply a major city with electricity for 200 million years...
...magnetic-field lines is also believed to be responsible for the spots' appearing progressively closer to the solar equator and the switch of magnetic polarities after each cycle. But ingenious as it seems, the dynamo model of the sun may need some serious revision. Astronomer Richard Altrock, at Sacramento Peak, has observed a brightening of the sun's corona that begins near the poles -- just when the first sunspots of a cycle break out around 35 degrees latitude -- then slowly progresses toward the equator. The brightening, he suspects, marks the beginning of still another cycle, long before the current...