The Sun goes through an 11-year cycle of activity, going from the solar maximum, where it is covered in many sunspots and is ...

Has solar maximum already come and gone? Perhaps not. Looking back to the first solar cycle graph shown in this article, we see that Solar Cycle 24 had two peaks — one in 2012, and a second in 2014.

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Latvia have posited the first comprehensive physical explanation for the sun's various activity cycles.