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Two Comets Slam into Sun
NightWulf notes: "CNN has an article about two comets that slammed into the Sun this week, causing it to 'burp.' They have some cool images of collision as well as a quicktime video. Could this have been the cause of the large solar flares that have been occurring this week?" Update: 11/10 03:07 GMT by H : Hah. Cliff's feeling retro I guess, and posted this story from 1998.
No.
that'd be kinda hard since it happened SIX YEARS AGO in June.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
"June 4, 1998 Web posted at: 3:50 p.m. EDT (1950 GMT)"
Not exactly breaking news here. I'm pretty sure that since this article is 5 years old, the comets didn't cause the solar flares.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
In other news the movement of a butterfly's wings in the last century has been shown to have caused last month's hurricane.
That CNN looks awful. Wait, a second, phone call. It's 1998 calling, they said they want their ugly web site back.
Are you sure it was this week? Positive? Could it have maybe been a couple of weeks ago? Oh, wait, make that 7 friggin' years ago! *sigh* Hey, Slashdot, it's been a rough week for ya, hasn't it?
Obviously you haven't read the FAQ. It's not the job of the editors to actually do editing. You don't believe me? Read for yourself:
How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?
We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read comments. You might find something that refutes, or supports, the story in the main.
Back when I was writing papers about impact catastrophes we used to show this movie to people. But when we did the mathematics we protty much could rule out any chance that the flares seen in the vide are related. The energy released in a solar flare is so many orders of magnitude greater that you have to start invoking exotic physics to have a chance of relating them...
OK this was 5 years ago, maybe the laws of physics have changed.
Science called.... I...I don't know what it was trying to say... but I think it was crying.
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
Anyone know if /. posted this one 5 year ago?
I hope it wasn't in the story queue for 5 years.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Now, actual comets flying into the sun, AFTER the episode is aired
...5 years before?
You mean before?
that's utterly lame. i hope these guys don't actually get paid to pick their asses and do nothing all day. or maybe this level of incompetence requires effort.
NightWulf and Cliff, you may think I'm crazy, but sell your dot-com stock now !!!
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After all - F=1/2mv^2
So assuming a finger velocity of 10ms^-1 and a combined finger/button mass of 0.05Kg we still only acheive an energy output of approx. 2.5J.
Obviously this is far short of the 1.928 x 10 E10 joules produced by 1 Kg of Uranium 235. Hence we can rule out any relationship between buttons and terrestrial fission devices...
Ok, so that is a touch inflammatory - but if I see one more "mathematically proven" piece of opinion I am going to "go critical".
After 10 seconds of thought here is my analysis:
Comets have two tails, not one. One is the "dust tail", the other the "ion tail". The ion tail (generally CO2 ionised by UV radiation) is swept away from the surface of the sun by its "solar magnetic wind" and hence will be roughly perpendicular to the suns surface (and hence it's field force lines).
An ionic tail (possibly up to an astronomical unit in length) descending into the suns EM fields is going to be like sticking a fork in a powerpoint...
To quote Nasa: "Flares appear to be associated with rapid energy releases high above the photosphere"
Hypothesis complete. Completely unproven of course, but I will not rule it "in" or "out"...
Q.
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Everyone know that light from CNN takes over 5 1/2 years to reach slashdot. So while you are only seeing the story appear now, the event actually occurred in 1998...
Too bad this isn't any more current than the story. Have they found the WMDs yet?
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