The Sun's Magnetic Dynamo Is Weakening:

Astronomers now confirm that the Sun's magnetic dynamo is likely to eventually disappear causing our star to lose its 11 year magnetic cycle. In fact, a billion years from now, they say, interplanetary spaceflight could become even more treacherous, since the Sun's protective magnetic heliosphere would weaken or even disappear --- leaving our solar system unshielded from incoming cosmic rays. In a paper submitted to the journal Solar Physics, co-author Travis Metcalfe confirms that the Sun, a yellow dwarf (G-spectral type) star is indeed making a long term transition in its magnetic activity cycle. Over the next one to two billion years, we have confirmed that the Sun's magnetic cycle period will get longer before disappearing entirely, Metcalfe, a research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., told me. Such changes in the Sun's evolutionary state, he says, could even altogether eliminate Earth's signature auroras --- the source of our polar Northern and Southern lights. Last year, in a paper appearing in The Astrophysical Journal, Metcalfe and colleagues first reported that for the last 400 million years, the Sun has been magnetically transitioning into a new evolutionary phase. That is, a phase thought to affect all middle-aged stars.

from Ham Radio Times http://ift.tt/2r8IIUJ
via IFTTT