Although common sense might indicate that the Sun is pretty much always the same, it undergoes regular cycles of rising and falling activity, lasting roughly 11 years. The solar cycles are characterized by changes in the output of visible and UV light, and the number of sunspots, with sunspots and visible light peaking together. Although the impact of an individual cycle is difficult to detect in the Earth's climate, extended periods of high or low activity have occurred, producing events like the Little Ice Age, and our most recent cycle has seen a long period of low sunspot counts.
We've observed sunspots for centuries, and know how the darkened areas occur, as intense local magnetic fields block the flow of material on the sun's surface, allowing cooler, darker material to remain on the surface of the sun. What we haven't figured out, however, is why their numbers vary so much from cycle to cycle. Some computer modeling, however, has now suggested that the flow of material between the pole and equator deep within the sun may dictate the strength of solar cycles that occur years afterward.
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