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For 70 years-from about 1645 to 1715-the Sun had been eerily quiet, with very few sunspots erupting on its surface. This prolonged period of muted activity, known as the Maunder Minimum, is the most dramatic so-called "grand minimum" ever recorded by humans. Recently scientists using a 3-D computer model of the same wild and swirling magnetic processes that are thought to be unfolding in the real Sun, spontaneously plunged into its own grand minimum. And then, maybe more importantly, it recovered.
[Source: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)]
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