Jovian Planet Influence on the Forcing of Sunspot Cycles

Abstract

The history of our solar system has been greatly influenced by the fact that there is a large gas giant planet, Jupiter that has a nearly circular orbit. This has allowed relics of the early solar system formation to still be observable today. Since Jupiter orbits the Sun with a period of approximately 12 years, it has always been thought that this could be connected to the nearly 11-year periodic peak in the number of sunspots observed. In this paper, the Sun and planets are considered to be moving about a center of mass point as the different planets orbit the Sun. This is the action of gravity that holds the solar system together. The center of mass for the Jupiter-Sun system actually lies outside the Sun. The four gas giant planets dominate such effects and the four gas giant Jovian planets can be projected together to determine an effective distance from the Sun ’ s center. Taken together these effects do seem to function as a sunspot forcing factor with a periodicity very close to 11 years. These predictions are made without consideration of any details of what is happening in the interior of the Sun. From these estimates, sunspot cycle 25 will be expected to peak in about September-October of 2025. Sunspot cycle 26 should peak in the year March of 2037.