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Solar Minimum Coming Sooner Than Expected
bigjocker writes "According to this NASA story: "Something strange happened on the sun last week: all the sunspots
vanished. This is a sign, say forecasters, that solar minimum is coming
sooner than expected.""
We're all gonna die!!
everyday is another shooter.
aaaaggg..
nah, we all knew that one:) its just ...oh well i dunno. We're dead one way or another. I mean its either dying of old age, getting shot by some random stanger, the sun going out, a new ice age, the ozone layer being screwed over, some poisonous snake, some evil alien that decides all earthlings are going to die, a world war 3, or this computer in from of you exploding. You pick.
It happens every 11 or so years. Nothing to panic
I, for one, welcome our new...
Oh hell. I can't. I just can't do it.
When it has lost all the ugly spots, why is the sun said to be hitting minimum!?! The girl next to our door with all those pimples'd say it should be called maximum.
Whatever might it be called, I hope the temperatures get down a little so I can get outside in the day (that being awake in the day is an extremely difficult thing is a different matter though)
After a bit of googling and actually reading the articles (gasp!) - here is some info that I found rather interesting:
The sun cycle is about 11 years. The length isn't fixed, it has varied between 9 and 14 years.
The next minimum was expected in late 2006, so this is coming about a year early.
Scientists don't understand the solar year, or what really causes it - so this could be a fluke or something else. So far it is just an interesting observation.
The linked article is good, but the Wiki link needs some help. Any solar physicists out there that want to contribute?
I'm off to get my insulated thermal tinfoil hat to see me through this.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
No, really, what.
I think heavy solar flares help radio wave transmissions, gives all the HAM operators a stiff pole. Does this lack of flares make signals worse? I dont see anything about the natural effects of this.
It happens every 11 or so years. Nothing to panic
It's the maid's job to clean up all those sunspots, but it takes 11 years or so to get enough windex, 'cause the sun is really big. There was a surplus this year, so she came in early.
Mystery solved.
--
AC
... it's about time to go home. Wait -- every 11 YEARS?!? It seems to get dark about every 24 hours around here, give or take a few.
according to www.spaceweather.com
"One week ago, the sun was utterly blank: no sunspots. Now there are several. The largest, sunspot 682, is twice as wide as Earth -- and growing. But it does not yet pose a theat for strong solar flares. Solar activity should remain low in the days ahead."
Low but not quite gone.
Also, this just means that sunspots are fewer and farther between; not gone completely.
TIME is the Aether...
I almost booked a trip to Norway this month to see the aurora borealis.
I am sure global warming is going to cause this.
Somehow it is causing the Sun to heat up and not create the cold sunspots
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Kaboom!
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
you said that you "almost booked a trip" to see the northern lights, which implies that you didn't book that trip. I'd say that qualifies as more of a "whew" than a "shit".
my pet machine
Ya know, that'd be the basis for a great april fools joke. Write a fake paper, blaming the sun's "dimming" on man made activity couched in just enough uncertainty and jargon to make it believible to the functionally retarded, and see if one could get in distributed out into the bullshit machine to get something like an AP article, or a mention on CNN. Next step: Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin make a shitty movie.
I've noticed the sun seems to be getting brighter. Could this "solar minimum" be the cause? I suppose it could just be my eyes getting more sensitive as I age, but I'd rather have an explanation I can blame on something other than getting old.
I'll bet the Bush administration seizes on this as the cause for global warming. They'll just shout -
"It's natural! Who woulda thunk it? Sunspots! Those crazy liberal scientists just didn't want you to enjoy ourselves with air-conditioning and driving huge cars. Now that we know whats REALLY going on and this whole mess is cleaned up we should just go back to driving our SUVs without even the slightest twinge of guilt. There's nothing we can do about it, if the sun wants to heat up the earth it must be part of Jesus's plan. Unless.... now we might sound crazy, but if we build a bunch more nuke-le-air bombs we might just be able to solve this "sun" problem. Hmmm... it IS threatening American interests..."
this one doesn't go to 11?
ka-dum *tching*
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
What would really be strange, is if there was no such thing as a deviation from the statistical average. Where actual single events are concerned, deviation from the average is more the rule than the exception.
To "expect" the average to happen and to call it strange when it doesn't, is actually not very logical.
You see, something's going to happen. You must leave.
What? What's going to happen?
Something wonderful.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Charged particles stream off the sun all the time anyway, the solar wind. This causes auroras all year round, it you're far enough North (or South for you Aussies). You can sometimes get CMEs when things called solar filaments collape (sort of like sun spots, but not) or when there are holes in the corona of the sun that let more solar wind squirt out.
It's like, how much more black could the sun be? and the answer is none. None more sunspots.
It is all the fault of the republicans, John Kerry will restore the sun to its full power. He says Bush has neglected the sun and that is the reason for this. He will do a better job with sacrifices to the sun god.
So just where do all the sunspots go when they go out? Do they take trip, or do they just close the door and put up an 'Out to lunch' sign?
Maybe instead of asking where are they going, we really should be asking 'What are they all running from?'
Kinda like when I actually didn't know about 9-11 till two days later, because I locked myself in my basment. I had just moved in, so I didn't have TV or internet yet, so I just played some RPG computer games.
So I feel for you man, IT CAN HAPPEN!
There's no little black spot on the sun today.
Looking at the chart in the article, it does appear that sun spot activity has been much more active last 100 years than before that. Obviously one would wonder if measurement has changed significantly, but I can't help but wonder if the sun is putting out more energy towards earth over the last 100 years. If true, would the sun be the primary driver of global warming?
What puzzles me about this beautiful and concise explanation is that there is no such thing as a field line: they are mere abstractions. And yet your description (which is in line what physicists generally tell us) talks as if they were material objects under tension, with elasticity and so on.
Naturally this metaphor must be justifiable by reference to the underlying electromagnetic theory, but is there any concise justification of this anywhere?