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C. DeForest (SwRI)
The Sun is currently in the maximum activity phase of its 11-year sunspot cycle, marking the reversal of its magnetic dipole moment and a peak in the number of sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and solar flares. Solar activity has long been known to affect the Earth and its geospace environment, but detailed understanding of the complex interaction between our star and its environment has remained elusive because solar and planetary data have been rich enough to identify events but not complete enough to constrain their physics. The unprecedented number and variety of spacecraft and ground based instruments that are observing the Sun, inner heliosphere, and Earth is at last providing data sets that can encompass the events of solar maximum from the detailed astrophysics of their origin, to their effects at Earth. The data are not only spectacular; they are also profoundly changing our understanding of the Sun's astrophysics and of its relevance to the Earth environment.