quiet Sun


quiet Sun

The term applied to the Sun around the minimum of the sunspot cycle, when the absence of active regions allows relatively ‘quiet’ conditions to prevail. The Sun is not then free of all disturbance but there are few (if any) concentrations of intense magnetic flux to produce significant departures from a uniform distribution of radiative flux across the disk. Compare active Sun.

quiet sun

[′kwī·ət ′sən] (astrophysics) The sun when it is free from unusual radio wave or thermal radiation such as that associated with sunspots.