Slashdot Mirror


Solar Cycle 24 Has Started

radioweather writes "Solar physicists have been waiting for the appearance of a reversed-polarity sunspot to signal the start of the next solar cycle. As of Friday, that wait is over. A magnetically reversed, high-latitude sunspot emerged on the surface of the sun. Just a few months ago, an 'All Quiet Alert' had been issued for the sun. This reversed-polarity sunspot marks the beginning of the sun's return back to Solar Maximum. Solar Cycle 24 has been the subject of much speculation due to competing forecasts on whether it will be a highly active or a quiet low cycle. If it is a low cycle, it may very well be a test of validity for some CO2 based global warming theories. Only time will tell."

9 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Impossible by deniable · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone needs to remodulate the flow of coffyon particles through the navigational percolator.

  2. Re:Impossible by polar+red · · Score: 4, Funny

    that would make great coffee

    --
    Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
  3. This is Simply a Sign by eno2001 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone knows that the last time there was some kind of reversal of polls on the Earth, the entire world lost electrical power for thousands of years and the whole planet was shattered into pieces!! We're lucky that gravity pulled it all together again and that electricity was discovered by Thomas Jefferson a few hundred years later. I think this is a sign of the creator's anger because we're all talking about man having come from monkeys instead of the real truth of Intelligent Design. It's a warning. If we don't get evolution theories out of the schools and replaced with science fact soon, he'll make more reversed spots on the sun and it will shatter into pieces. I don't think we'll survive that this time.

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
  4. Re:Glad it's not a menstrual cycle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not necessarily. You can always reverse your polarity and explore the other hemisphere.

  5. Re:Impossible by mboverload · · Score: 4, Funny

    NEXT TIME ON 24!

    Bill Buchanan: The Sun is going to destroy Los Angeles if we don't stop it!
    Jack Bauer: Get me on a plane to the moon.

  6. Re:Impossible by mrbluze · · Score: 4, Funny

    Reversed Polarity is just change from + to - or south to north. Nothing magical about it. Reversing polarity can really break stuff, though. I hope the sun's got a diode.
    --
    Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
  7. Re:Impossible by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 4, Funny

    Chloe: Jack, the only flight I can get you on is a Chinese moonshot.

    Jack: Damn it Chloe.

    Chloe: whimper

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  8. Re:discredit global warming theories? no way by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Funny

    And I am constantly disheartened when I hear of this bullshit... even more painfully so, given my experience in the field of virology and immunology research.

    Actually, I find "AIDS dissent", as you call it, far far more disturbing than the "9-11 Truth" conspiracy. At least in the case of "9-11 Truth", there remains at least SOME possibility for at least SOME of the minor claims of the conspiracy theorists. The case of "AIDS dissent" on the other hand, is rather similar to "gravity dissent".

    P.S. As with any AIDS/HIV conspiracy theorist, I have a standing offer: inoculate yourself with 10X ID50 of purified HIV, and if you get a productive infection, but don't get AIDS, you get all my property, and the entire contents of my bank account... and I will quit biological science research. Deal?

  9. Re:Impossible by Nimey · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, imagine a Beowulf cluster of Suns!

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem