Posted on 03/14/2011 9:11:01 AM PDT by neverdem
The sun is usually a predictable beast, at least as far as its sunspot cycle goes. Every 11 years or so, the sun's magnetic activity peaks and then troughs, resulting in relatively high and then low numbers of dark spots and flares on the solar surface. But in the cycle that has just finished, the trough went on for much longer than normal, with more than twice as many days without sunspots compared with previous cycles. To figure out what caused this, researchers used a computer simulation of the churning hot plasma inside the sun. As each cycle progresses, the movement of this plasma (black loop) shifts the solar magnetic fields (gold strands)—from which sunspots erupt—from the sun's midlatitudes to its equator. An extended minimum occurs whenever the plasma moves quickly at the beginning of a cycle—preventing a large buildup of magnetic fields—but then slows down toward the end, delaying the onset of the next cycle, the team reports online today in Nature. This knowledge won't help in predicting individual solar storms, the researchers say, but it should give scientists a better idea of how stormy the sun will be in the years to come. And that should help to limit the worst effects of storms, be it damage to satellites in orbit or harm to people flying close to the poles.
Now.....armed with this knowledge, I can be confused on a higher level. I’ve never understood how these people come up with this data. I guess that’s why I never entered this field.
Okay. I admit it. I'VE got them. I took them and I hid them in my garage. They're on the bottom shelf of the workbench inside an old ammo can which is sitting on top of some pieces of scrap lumber left over from when the boy and I made some birdhouses last fall.
Do you folks want them back? I will return them if you promise not to press charges. I'll meet you in the WalMart parking lot in town. I'll be the one in the bright orange shirt... and hat... and pants... and car...
“Now.....armed with this knowledge, I can be confused on a higher level. I’ve never understood how these people come up with this data. I guess that’s why I never entered this field.”
It’s complex stuff. The A students in physics accomplish these feats.
The D- students either go into “climate change” research, or are working in the West Wing.
They must be wrong because this Nobel laureate said that kind of stuff is caused by nothing other than SUV's and coal fired electrical generation plants. So whom to believe?
That just puts you on the same LEVEL that 'they' are.
They are 'theorizing' because they don't really know either. Nothing listed in the article explained what caused this departure from the normal cycles.
The 'plasma slows down, then it speeds up' theory causes more questions than it gives answers.
Until they can plant PLASMA FLOW MARKER BUOYS on the surface (or inside) of the Sun, it is really difficult to tell if the plasma changes speed at all.
Some say we should receive a huge solar storm on 3/19/11 I wonder how they know that??.
Post #4 I must be the E student.
Well, you better give them back.
Each day of truancy just adds more to their punishment.
The Sun is a harsh master.
The 19th is the day the MOON makes it's closest approach to Earth in 18 years(IIRC).
That has absolutely nothing to do with a solar storm from the Sun.
HOWEVER, the Sun did have a MCE and some glancing XRAYS have already hit the Earth. Some of it is due to hit the Earth on or around the 19th.
Still, it is just a coincidence. (or the GODS hate us)
I get it now thanks,(or the GODS hate us) they must we have OIbama&Co.
I nominate the crack Algore climate team to plant those plasma flow marker buoys (in person).
The sunspots disappeared because we are still driving cars!
The only cure is to give more money to the government and elect man-bear-pig as King of the Solar System.
Only he can protect us from the millions of degrees that are 2km beneath our feet!
I think that's the name of a novel by Robert A. Heineken.
Of course, they'd take the precaution of going at night.
Isn't he the guy that wrote "The Number of the Yeast"?
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
thanks for the ping
Isn't he the guy that wrote "The Number of the Yeast"?
I thought it was Adolphus Busch.
The same guy who wrote "The Catcher in the Fly"
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