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Edward Walter Maunder

English astronomer

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Edward Walter Maunder was an English astronomer who is primarily known for his work on sunspots. In 1894, he observed that there were very few sunspots recorded between 1645 and 1715. This period of drastically reduced sunspot activity is now called the Maunder minimum. While other astronomers at the time attributed the lack of sunspots to poor observation, Maunder's findings were later supported by extensive historical data and analysis of carbon-14 levels in tree rings. The Maunder minimum coincided with the coldest part of the "Little Ice Age" in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting a potential link between solar activity and Earth's climate, though the exact mechanism remains unknown.1

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