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News Release 06-041
Scientists Issue Unprecedented Forecast of Next Sunspot Cycle
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![Coronal loops.](/news/mmg/media/images/traceloopsmstill12_f.jpg)
NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft caught these coils of hot, electrified gas, known as coronal loops, above active sunspots. The loops (some more than 300,000 miles high and capable of spanning 30 Earths) rise while flowing along the solar magnetic field, then cool and crash back to the surface at more than 60 miles per second (100 kilometers per second).
Credit: NASA / Stanford Lockheed Institute for Space Research
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