The sun just had no visible sunspots for the 1st time since 2022. Is the end of the current solar cycle near?
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A flawless sun seen on February 22, 2026 by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). | Credit: Courtesy of NASA/SDO and science teams from AIA, EVE and HMI
The Sun’s visible disk is completely free of sunspots for the first time since June 2022, suggesting that the current solar cycle may be heading into its quieter phase.
Sunspots are cooler areas on the surface of the sun that appear darker than their surroundings. These solar defects are caused by intense magnetic fields that prevent heat from the star’s interior from rising to the surface. When the magnetic field lines entangled around these points burst, the sun emits solar flares etcoral mass ejections of dense plasma that can cause geomagnetic storms on Earth.
The sun follows a cycle of approximately 11 years during which its activity fluctuates. During the solar maximumsunspots are constant and flares and coronal mass ejections occur almost daily. On the other hand, during the minimum, the sun can go months without a single sunspot.
The current solar cycle, the 25th since records began, peaked in 2024. The last time the face of the sun was perfectly flawless was June 8, 2022, more than 1,355 days ago.
It seems that this impeccable condition only lasted two days. On Tuesday (February 24), some eagle-eyed observers began spot a newly emerging active region. It is also possible that other sunspots exist on the surface of the Sun, but are not currently visible to observers on Earth and have moved away from the view of satellites orbiting Earth.
Although the slowing down of sunspot production by the sun probably indicates that the current solar cycle is decreasingsolar activity is not expected to reach its next minimum before 2030, according to the British Met Office. During the last solar minimum between 2018 and 2020, the sun remained unspotted for 700 days, according to spaceweather.com.
For now, this pristine day in the sun offers a brief lull in activity, but it’s too early to tell whether it signals a longer-term slowdown in solar storms and aurorae.
