The sun has grown increasingly active over the past 17 years, bucking a downward trend that had solar physicists wondering whether our star was heading towards a new "grand minimum" of the kind last seen in 1830.

Beginning in the 1980s, solar activity started decreasing overall, with each subsequent 11-year sunspot cycle seeing fewer sunspots, fewer flares and fewer coronal mass ejections. Solar activity reached a nadir in 2008, which was the lull at the beginning of solar cycle 24. That year had the weakest solar activity on record.

"All signs were pointing to the sun going into a prolonged phase of low activity," said Jamies Jasinski of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a statement. "So it was a surprise to see that trend reversed. The Sun is slowly waking up."

Jasinski led research

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