Space Mailbag: What's Up with the Sun?

Space.com ^ | November 5, 2003 | By Robert Roy Britt

[Aracelis]

Ping!

[South40]

[Aracelis]

Great image! Do you have a date for this event?

[backhoe]

The Sun has a Thousand Faces--- Thread 3

[South40]

No date. But here's another...

[Aracelis]

Magnificent...I was searching for good images earlier this evening. One of my co-workers (who admittedly has lead a cloistered life) asked me to explain solar flares. I found a few images, but now I can show her these. Thanks!

[Ff--150]

Luke 21:25,26:

25. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

26. Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

[trebb]

It's global warming I tell ya, we have made the Earth so over-warm that it is starting massive fires on the Sun.

[4CJ]

The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old.

Given its current mass and the rate of decay/loss of matter, if it were this old the sun would have been much more massive, and burnt the earth to a crisp or its gravity would have sucked the earth into its maw.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[js1138]

You know something physicists don't know?

[Ff--150]

Given its current mass and the rate of decay/loss of matter, if it were this old the sun would have been much more massive, and burnt the earth to a crisp or its gravity would have sucked the earth into its maw.

Great point, thanx.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Please show your caculations for this.

[Lazamataz]

Maw-sucking decay-lossing earth-crisping sun, anyways.

I hate the sun.

[Barnacle]

Laura writes: With all the recent activity the Sun has been sending our direction what could we expect if our protective geomagnetic field begins to weaken, or worse, what if our magnetic poles were to reverse as they have done many times in the past history of the Earth?

That looks like a question a geologist would ask. I was thinking of it myself... Is that you?

Bill

[4CJ]

You know something physicists don't know?

God.

[4CJ]

4.6e9 years x 4.2e9 kg/s mass lost = 6.1e26 kg loss and a change of 4.6e4 kilometers in mean distance. That's assuming that all mass is lost through nuclear fusion, that our ability to calculate the loss per second is accurate and that the rate has remained constant. There's no way to prove that it has or hasn't. I simply find it hard to believe that the Sun will be burnt out with 99.93% of its mass remaining. Just as I find it impossible to believe that mass simply "popped" into existance from nothingness.

[RightWhale]

if it were this old

Been studying Chandrasekar's work?

[4CJ]

Been studying Chandrasekar's work?

Nah, I read a lot of different stuff, throw out hyperbole, and sometimes just take things the wrong way ;o)