At https://spaceweather.com 11th January 2022 .. in an update on solar cycle 25 they say it is shaping up to be stronger than anticipated. The same story is over at https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2022/01/12/solar-cycle-25-update/ where it is noted it still quite a way below the average for the last couple of decades. For the rest of us it means we aren't likely to be going into a solar minimum like the Maunder event. In fact, one might even think this winter won't be as cold as predicted. Mind you, there is a long way to go as the solar cycle has yet to reach its peak. There have been a number of geomagnetic storms over the last 6 weeks or so.
Interestingly, in a new study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters [see https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slab127 – and also https://phys.org/news/2022-01-astronomers-potential-clue-reinonization-u… … we are informed that 400,000 years after Big Bang there was a period known as the Epoch of Reionisation. During this period the once very hot universe began cool and matter clumped together to form the first stars and galaxies. As they emerged their energy heated the surrounding environment, reionising hydrogen. We are told the 'reionization' is well known – but how it happened is another matter. Needless to say they are suggesting it involved a black hole, a million times as bright, or energetic, as our sun. Black holes mayh be important to enable escape of UV radiation from galaxies that reionised the intergalactic medium. So, black holes are to blame. On the other hand, it might all be pie in the sky.