One further (far-out :-) thought on this 11- year cycle… and it is that we are seeing what is basically a holdover resonance from the “previous system”.
Our sun is a second or third generation star – meaning that it has gone through more than one iteration of collapse and rebirth. Where was the “progenitor” or parent system which exploded earlier in the history of the Milky Way? The Milky way is thought to be a spiral galaxy – the twin of Andromeda http://www.hdwallpaperspics.com/uploads/2013/07/pictures-arp-273-ugc-1810-andr-53702.jpg And out location is consistent with the “event” that caused the arms to form from a more globular proto-galaxy about 5 billion years ago. Actually, Eta Carinae is a good candidate for our parent, since it is about one third of the way towards the galactic center, at the junction of one of the arms - which is where a star which formed 4.5 billion years ago would be expected to have been ejected from the progenitor system into one of the expanding arms. Thus - some kind of “memory” of the rotational cycle of Eta Carinae is possibly retained in the 11-year Solar cycle, and this resonance includes the rotational momentum of the gas giants. Jones
