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Second Pole To The Right, Straight On 'til Morning

Posted by timothy on from the asbestos-shoes dept.

billn writes "NASA article about the Sun's south pole going walkabout. Some nice imagery from SOHO, as well as some neat animations about the heliospheric sheet."

14 comments

  1. Damn you Joachim! by shadowbearer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was in the middle of making up a story submission for this one. Argh!

    This is actually quite interesting. It means that the internal dynamo within our parent star is not understood quite as well as we thought.

    I wonder, when we've studied this more, what we'll learn about high intensity magnetic fields, and how it will contribute to fusion research.

    Let's hope a lot :-)

    SB

    --
    It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    1. Re:Damn you Joachim! by billn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I find it interesting, especially from a 'weather' context. I've always been a big fan of the more elegant science fiction constructs: sail ships. Different writers have posed different concepts, from using a physical sail to harness the outbound particle wave (Star Trek tipped their hat to this in a couple of DS9 episodes), or the more practical/possible use of shaped fields to interact with the magnetic field (see Michael Flynn's 'Rogue Star/Fire Star/Lode Star' series, a highly recommended read. For what he didn't get about the internet, he made up for with his grasp of astrophysics.)

      There's other possibilities that would stem from this kind of research as well. There was a piece in PopSci a few years back about dangling a wire from low orbiting satellite, to trail through Earth's EM field as a means of generating power. Similiar methods could be used to power extraorbital structures by tapping the solar magnetosphere, or even induce drag for low-g propulsion.

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      - billn
    2. Re:Damn you Joachim! by barakn · · Score: 2, Informative
      the internal dynamo within our parent star is not understood quite as well as we thought

      Huh? Actually scientists have always considered stellar and planetary dynamos to be very enigmatic. No one has ever claimed they knew them "well." The story isn't about the dynamo, it's about how the heliosphere's shape changes in response to magnetic fields on the surface. As for the double north pole, the article states "it's a fairly normal side-effect of the solar cycle."

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
    3. Re:Damn you Joachim! by shadowbearer · · Score: 1


      I'd bet we see this pop up in a SF book a few years from now. Way too many possibilities.

      A power tap was an idea I had too.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    4. Re:Damn you Joachim! by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      "Actually scientists have always considered stellar and planetary dynamos to be very enigmatic"

      True. But there have been a lot of discoveries like this in the last decade or so that make "current" (OMG, pun) models obsolete. That's why the computer models (our second best test of the many theories) are evolving so fast.

      "The story isn't about the dynamo, it's about how the heliosphere's shape changes in response to magnetic fields on the surface. As for the double north pole, the article states "it's a fairly normal side-effect of the solar cycle."

      Don't be so pedantic, I think we are talking about the same thing - the EM mechanism of Sol. My point was that there is still a lot to be understood about how stars work, no matter how much we think we understand. So we're basically agreed, neh?

      Y'know, some of us do try to present concepts in ways that most people will understand. I was trying to be as simple as possible. Pardon me if I wasn't entirely accurate.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    5. Re:Damn you Joachim! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That wire experiment was actually done by NASA - Interestingly, the wire vaporised, (probably) got far morepower than they expected.

  2. Re:YOU by aderusha · · Score: 2, Informative

    huh? you mean "second star to the right, straight on till morning"? that's from peter pan dude...

  3. Re:YOU by billn · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Yeah, yer a tard. As the person who replied to this first, it IS a Peter Pan reference. Log off and go read a book. The Internet will be trolled without you.

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    - billn
  4. Re:YOU by billn · · Score: 1

    Actually, I submitted it with that title. =P

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    - billn