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Solar minimum is the regular period of least solar activity in the Sun's 11-year solar cycle. During solar minimum, sunspot and solar flare activity diminishes, and often does not occur for days at a time. On average, the solar cycle takes about 11 years to go from one solar minimum to the next, with duration observed varying from 9 to 14 years.
Over the period of a solar cycle, levels of solar radiation and ejection of solar material, the number and size of sunspots, solar flares, and coronal loops all exhibit a synchronized fluctuation from a period of minimum activity to a period of a maximum activity back to a period of minimum activity.
Solar cycles are nearly periodic 11-year changes in the Sun's activity that are based on the number of sunspots present on the Sun's surface. The first solar cycle conventionally is said to have started in 1755.
The Maunder Minimum shown in a 400-year history of sunspot numbers. The Maunder Minimum, also known as the "prolonged sunspot minimum", was a period around 1645 to 1715 during which sunspots became exceedingly rare. During the 28-year period 1672–1699 within the minimum, observations revealed fewer than 50 sunspots.
While intense activity such as sunspots and solar flares subside during solar minimum, that doesn’t mean the sun becomes dull.
The sun has an 11-year cycle, where it builds from a quiet, placid minimum to a roaring maximum, then dies back down. ... The sun at solar minimum (left, December 2019) versus solar maximum (right ...
Following the peak, solar activity slows down, according to NASA, growing less and less until the solar minimum. At that point, a new solar cycle begins as solar activity rebounds.
One historical long-term correlation between solar activity and climate change is the 1645–1715 Maunder minimum, a period of little or no sunspot activity which partially overlapped the "Little Ice Age" during which cold weather prevailed in Europe. The Little Ice Age encompassed roughly the 16th to the 19th centuries.