evidence: "This is called solar minimum," says Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. "And it’s a regular part of the sunspot cycle." [...] There are unique space weather effects that get stronger during solar minimum. For example, the number of galactic cosmic rays that reach Earth’s upper atmosphere increases during solar minimum. Galactic cosmic rays are high energy particles accelerated toward the solar system by distant supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy. [...] Solar minimum brings about many changes to our sun, but less solar activity doesn’t make the sun and our space environment any less interesting.