In August, Michael Asher of the science blog at Daily Tech reported on a “milestone not seen for nearly 100 years” with regard to Earth’s Sun: an entire month had passed without a single visible sunspot being observed. “According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot,” Asher said. ”The last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.”

But this “sunshine-silence” wasn’t to be held for long.

Recent photographs, taken by the Big Bear Solar Observatory in Big Bear, California, depict what appears to be a bizarre ”square” sunspot on the sun’s surface. At the Data4Science website, author Ted Twietmeyer said of the object, “What’s quite amazing about this sunspot (which no one is talking about,) is that this sunspot appears to have a square geometry.”

The new sunspot (the small dot above and to the right of the sun’s center in the photo above), as it appeared earlier this week with an apparent squarish geometry. Image courtesy of NASA.

“Superheated plasma dancing randomly can be seen everywhere in this image,” Twietmeyer notes. “Yet this lone, square sunspot appears out of nowhere.” Twietmeyer believes this sort of activity may indicate “intelligent manipulation,” but by whom?

According to the BBSO website, this Monday September 29, structural parts of a new telescope and assisting mount will be arriving at the observatory, where assembly will begin. “Once the structure is put together the optics will be installed and testing can begin. We expect first light in the fall,” they say. With this new telescopic equipment, new imaging of this most recent sunspot, and of future anomalies, might be easier. But perhaps more importantly, it may tell us about current (and future) trends in solar activity.

On the other hand, officials with NASA are already telling us what we can expect. Yesterday (9/23/2008) NASA held a press conference having to do with the state of our solar system’s sun. The following was stated regarding the anomalous sunspot during this conference:

This new spot has both the magnetic orientation and the high-latitude position of a sunspot belonging to the new solar cycle, Cycle 24. Will this be the harbinger of more solar changes to come and mark the beginnings of a rise in solar activity in the near future? Only time will tell. If the pattern from the record of the past 400 years holds, we can expect that solar activity will begin to show an increase in the next few months.

Is the object we’re viewing the result of some sort of “manipulation” as some have suggested, or is it more likely that the Sun is merely entering a new (and expected) phase of future solar activity? Regardless, one must ponder how such activity as it shapes over time might continue to affect climate change, as well as how it may affect theories like global warming.

Only time will tell, but for now it’s good to know that, as Bono of U2 reminds us, we aren’t the only ones starring at the sun… and there’s certainly more to come.

Special Thanks to Marvin Bishop for contributing to this report.