杏吧原创

Space weather forcasts met the same fate as the more down-to-earth kind when
last week鈥檚 solar eclipse in southern Africa failed to match the prediction. Two
days before the eclipse, Zoran Mikic and colleagues from Science Applications
International Corporation in San Diego predicted the shape of the Sun鈥檚 corona,
based on the Sun鈥檚 magnetic field strength. But Jim Klimchuk of the Naval
Research Laboratory in Washington DC says the match was not great. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 as
nice as one would hope.鈥� The Sun is at the peak of its 11-year activity cycle
and is particularly erratic. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 really their fault,鈥� says Klimchuk.