Indian Scientists Forecast The Activity Of The Upcoming Sunspot

The forecast about the environmental condition of space

Indian scientists forecast that the environmental condition of space throughout the next ten years would stay the same or just get lightly harsher when we compared it to the last ten years.

Dibyendu Nandi, Professor at IISER Kolkata, and Prantika Bhowmik, a Ph.D. student of Nandi, have come up with a new technique to foresee the upcoming sunspot cycle.

Dibyendu Nandi is a famous Indian scientist who is known for his research about the Solar Magnetic Cycle. He was also awarded the prestigious Karen Harvey Prize in 2012 of American Astronomical Society. Currently, he works as an associate professor in Pune at IUCAA (Inter-Uni Centre for Astrophysics and Astronomy).

Dibyendu Nandi in a conference

Indian scientists' new technique

The technique that Nandi and his student have come up with in their research has been successful in matching observations of sunspot activity over the last century. It also allows us to make predictions about ten years before the activity strength peaks of the following sunspot cycle. They are the first worldwide that could make this happen.

The sunspot activity has subsequential influences on the environmental condition of space, which in turn affect our satellites and all technologies we have in space like navigational networks or telecommunications.

It was always a challenge for astronomers to forecast these changes. But the duo Indian scientists have used not one but two combined computer models to solve that complicated challenges. They used each computer model for a different purpose then combine the result to make a new technique in predicting the following sunspot cycle.

How important is it?

Crucially,  Indian scientists forecast that the following sunspot cycle would be significant. Their research amazingly suggests that it might even be stronger than the previous one. They predict the subsequent cycle to peak in 2024, Prof Nandi said.

Sunspots are about ten times as large as the Earth. They also have magnetic fields ten thousand times stronger than that of the Earth. Since the era of Galileo, scientists have been observing these spots with telescopes. Thanks to that they have noticed that some cycles are weaker or stronger than the average.

Sunspots

With this research of the team Bhowmik and Nandy, Prof Raychaudhury of IUCAA told us that he is very proud of the achievement of the duo Indian scientists. He also believes that this research would bring tremendous benefit to the prediction of solar activity.