Maunder minimum
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The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.
The concept became notable after John A. Eddy published a landmark 1976 paper in Science titled "The Maunder Minimum". Astronomers before Eddy had also named the period after the solar astronomer Edward W. Maunder (1851-1928) who studied how sunspot latitudes changed with time. The periods he examined included the second half of the 17th century. Edward Maunder published two papers in 1890 and 1894, and he cited earlier papers written by Gustav Spörer. The Maunder Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots in modern times
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