The sun had been relatively free of any new spots since the previous cycle ended last year.

Some had feared that the absence of the dark blotches on the sun’s surface might mean that our star could be entering a decades-long absence of the features. This last occurred in the 17th century and brought on what was referred to as the “Little Ice Age.”

But the new sunspots appeared with two dark cores, each wider than Earth and connected by active magnetic filaments thousands of miles long.

Scientists were able to determine the new sunspots were part of the new cycle and not the one just ended by observing their polarity and distance from the solar equator.

The first sunspots of a new cycle initially emerge at high latitudes, then appear progressively closer to the equator as the cycle matures.

This cycle is the 24th since detailed solar record keeping began in 1755.

Solar Movie: Michelson Doppler Imager (Stanford University)