A Jan. 18 solar prominence captured by the SOHO spacecraft is roughly 100 times as wide as Earth.
Dotted lines indicate the prediction's range of error.
Back in 1996, when NASA solar physicist David Hathaway and others projected that the approaching peak in sunspot activity would be among the most severe in recent times, space weather forecasting was in its infancy. So we can probably excuse the predictions for being a little off the mark. It will always surprise you. Over the past four years, Hathaway has been honing his forecasting skills, most recently by sorting through three dozen methods to find those that most accurately predict when the next peak in solar activity will occur. The looming peak, known as a solar maximum , is part of a roughly 11-year cycle of increasing and decreasing sunspots, which correspond to changes in the amount of energy the sun spews our way.