The sun has gone into shutdown, which, scientists claim, could spark freezing weather, earthquakes and famine.
It is currently in a “solar minimum” phase, meaning that activity on its surface has dropped drastically.
And while we suffer from coronavirus on Earth, our star — the Sun — has a lockdown all of its own. It’s estimated that by 2020, as our Sun showed zero sunspots, there had already been 100 days.
Experts agree that we are about to reach the longest time of “recession” of sunlight ever reported as sunspots have practically gone out.
Dr. Tony Phillips, astronomer, said: “Solar Minimum is happening, and it’s deep.
“The counts of sunspot indicate this is one of the largest in the last century. The magnetic field of the sun has become weak and causes additional cosmic rays to reach the solar system.
“Excess cosmic rays pose a safety threat to astronauts and polar air travelers, impact the Earth’s upper atmosphere’s electro-chemistry, and can help cause lightning.”
Nasa scientists believe it could be a continuation of the Dalton Minimum that occurred between 1790 and 1830 — leading to cycles of extreme frost, crop destruction, malnutrition, and strong volcanic eruptions.
Temperatures have plunged by up to 2C over 20 years, crippling food production around the world.
The second largest volcanic eruption in 2,000 years occurred on 10 April 1815 at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, killing nearly 71,000 people.
It also contributed in 1816 to the so-called Year Without a Summer — often dubbed “eighteen hundred and froze to death”—when snow fell in July.
So far this year, 76 percent of the time the sun was “blank” without any sunspots, a rate that only once exceeded in the Space Age — last year when it was blank at 77 percent.
‘The global mean temperature is expected to be influenced by a solar minimum, making it cooler but by barely 20th of a degree’, says Jeff Knight.