SOLAR MINIMUM IS APPROACHING... Today marks the 5th day in a row and the 35th day in 2017 that the sun has been blank--no sunspots. This exceeds the total number of spotless days in all of 2016 (32). The accelerating pace of spotlessness is a sign that Solar Minimum is approaching. Forecasters expect the sunspot cycle, which swings like a pendulum between high and low sunspot number every ~11 years, to reach its nadir in 2019-2020. Stay tuned for more blank suns. Free: Aurora Alerts ... AND COSMIC RAYS ARE INTENSIFYING: Many people think Solar Minimum is boring. Wrong. During the nadir of the sunspot cycle, the entire heliosphere changes its personality with many consequences for the space around our planet. One of the most important changes involves cosmic rays--high-energy radiation reaching Earth from deep space. As sunspot numbers decline, cosmic rays intensify. Is this actually happening? The answer is "yes." Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been