Slashdot Mirror
The Quietest Sun
Orbity sends in a Boston Globe report on the unusual calm on the surface of the sun. The photos, many taken in more active solar times, are excellent — see the sequence from last year of a coronal mass ejection carrying away the tail of a comet. "The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum — in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year — with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm..." As if to be contrary, New Scientist mentions that the number of sunspots seem to be increasing.
The sun is dying. Netcraft confirms it.
What?
We're doomed! We're dooooooooooooooomed!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Who cares? We'll still have light bulbs. Plus we'll save on sunscreen!
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
it's quiet out there... too darn quiet... I don't like it...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Speaking of the sun, I recently bought a DSLR camera, and I would like to take pictures of the sun with it. Does anyone of you know how to go about that without destroying the camera's sensor or my eyes? What kind of filter do I need? Some people suggested a piece of glass that people use for welding; is that good enough?
-- Cheers!
We're all screwed...
No. Now he got laid. Didn't u read he is unusual calm after mass ejection!!!
hilarious
This tropical paradise looks as calm as one trillion nuclear bombs. Honey, we're going on vacation.
Full Tilt
dooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed!
dooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed!
(it's a Futurama joke...)
... burns you to a crisp... now it's in a calm state... but it's waiting, taunting us with massive flares... during the so called calm period there was that really big flare on 20080929... yikes... crispy... Sol... stay cool...
The five trillion tons of Clearasil must be starting to kick in.
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
You might check with your local 'Astronomy Club', or if a planetarium is nearby, maybe someone there could give you the benefit of their (individual/group) experience.
Even though I have benefited from some real gems at /. , I would still do some independent research for something like this.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
so THAT is what caused the economic crisis...
People, pray to your favorite deity for more sun spots!
This story is a little late. Since then a cycle 24 spot group has been seen. Even so, solar activity is still rather low, cycle 24 is late. What does it mean? It means we're going to be in for some very cold weather in the near future.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/11/significant-cycle-24-sunspot-group-emerges/#more-3635
Have a look at the SIDC. We count sunspots and get payed for it!
The sun is using ProActive
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
You did.
Apparently
As the sun has an 11 year cycle of activity, is it really that significant that this is the least active it's been in 50 years? That would mean that out of the last 5 solar minima this is the quietest, which it doesn't take a physicist to notice is a 1 in 5 chance - hardly breathtaking.
Come on! We must be able to link this to some kind of human activity!
(1) those are *stunning* pictures
and
(2) did I not hear that this is linked to the lull in global warming recently, and as soon as the sun picks so does the heat? is this true....?
New spots are beginning to break out on the face of the Sun and may signal the end of a dry spell in solar activity.
This will give us good readings on how the solar cycle affects this climate.
Stop the brainwash
.. but the Sparc 1 in my basement is damn silent, I tell you.
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
Dont people google any more?
Google answers all of you questions just ask, its like the oracle , it sees all, knows all, its your friend. Google just needs a 3d avatar, and a voice of Hal.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I am by no means an expert, much less an advanced knowledgeable person when it comes to this stuff, I just find it interesting and hope some of you will as well.
I read an article over a year ago about how they could not get good measurements of solar flares because the instruments were not good enough and to get some measurements you needed at least two observation points some distance apart. (probably related to measuring gamma rays) It is my understanding that the earth finally has the right kinds of instruments up there to get very accurate measurements of the sun, solar flares and etc.... I searched around and have provided a few links. I believe you will really like the Youtube video, very cool. Enjoy!
The Solar/SMO was planned for 2003 and was finally launched on February 7, 2008. It is designed to measure solar radiation with wavelenghts from 200 nanometers - 100 micrometers. This covers the near-ultraviolet, visible and infrared areas of the spectrum. Here is NASA on Solar / SMO.
Hinode launched in September 2006 has a three year mission to explore the magnetic fields of the sun. Specifically the investigates the interaction between the Sun's magnetic field and its corona. A consortium including Japan, US, UK and Norway worked together to measure the effects of "magnetic fields thought to be the source of solar flares" Three instruments are used, they are the SOT (Solar Optical Telescope, the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). The first images were captured on October 28.
HESSI renamed RHESSI launched on February 5, 2002, captures solar flares, X-rays and gamma ray flashes. Prior to the launch of RHESSI, we only had the GOES spacecraft which only measured X-ray flux and to classify the size of solar flares. YouTube on HESSI / RHESSI; A solar flare video - no sound. Here is a great video that shows the various instruments in action, one right after the other. From 10/18/03 through 11/07/03; AR 10486 & AR 10488.
From the Wiki,
The most powerful flare of the last 500 years is believed to have occurred in September 1859: it was seen by British astronomer Richard Carrington and left a trace in Greenland ice in the form of nitrates and beryllium-10, which allow its strength to be measured today (New Scientist, 2005).
Prior to the above launches, the Ulysees was pretty much it for measuring from space, before Ulysses there was only observations from the ground.
Ulysses (17 year mission) - was equipped with instruments to characterize fields, particles, and dust, and was powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Launched in 10/6/90 through 7/1/08; through "through triangulation (or, more specifically, multilateration). Each spacecraft has a gamma-ray detector, with readouts noted in tiny fractions of a second. By comparing the arrival times of gamma showers with the separations of the spacecraft, a location can be determined, for follow-up with other telescopes. Because gamma rays travel at the speed of light, wide separations are needed." Additional discoveries: Additional discoveries: [15] 1) Ulysses discovered that the Sun's magnetic field interacts with the Solar system in a more complex fashion than previously believed. 2) Ulysses discovered that dust coming into the solar system from deep space was 30 times more abundant than previously expected.
Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
Could anyone tell me what the mechanism behind an accelerating wavefront is ? The caption creates the impression that this is physics for 12 year olds ...
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
Holy cow. Misplaced comment here, but if you do not normally click the links in Slashdot articles, click them today. The first link has pictures of the sun that I never knew we had. They're amazing. Some of them are close up at 70km resolution. Just awesome.
If the lack of sunspots holds on, then, if we get declining global temperatures, then, we might actually be headed into an ice age. Knowing our luck, this would become evident AFTER we've blown ten trillion dollars to lower our CO2.
This is my sig.
The cycle's AVERAGE is 11 years. It could go longer or shorter. This is not a big deal. I believe one past cycle (IIRC) lasted 13 years. Give it a few months. It'll start kicking in.
No they will try to blame it on the Bush administration, because as we all know everything that has gone wrong in the universe over the last eight years is W's fault.
OK, I appreciate all that info you posted and probably wouldn't have mentioned this were it not that your correction missed it too, but as someone who appreciates someone pointing it out to me, let me pass on this favor to someone obviously bright enough to make use of it.
Think allot > allotment. "Allot" has its roots in the way possibly contested assignments (of land, jobs, whatever) were often distributed "in times of lore" and occasionally still are, using the process of drawing lots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_of_lots. Today, it has a broader meaning of distribution in general, whether by random means or not.
"A lot" (two words) is a description of degree, meaning "very much", "a great deal". Even in the two-word form, however, until recently it was considered a colloquialism, unfit for formal use, altho (deliberate (mis)spelling) modern dictionaries seem to omit that, meaning it has graduated to being permissible in formal use only in the last few years. Taking its place has been the single-word form, "alot", which still causes many to shudder and can't be found in many dictionaries, but has come into increasingly common informal usage. Wictionary has this to say about the single-word-form "alot": "When it appears intentionally in print, it is generally either representing the original spelling in a work quoted, or is an attempt by the author to convey poor education in the character using it." Wictionary has more on the word, here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alot.
From personal observation, "a lot" of the misuse of "allot" came about due to spell checkers flagging "alot", dumbly suggesting "allot" but failing to suggest "a lot", either because it's two words or because the term has only recently been accepted for formal use and thus didn't appear. I know this was the case for my personal misuse, as I never /did/ think "allot" looked right, but sometimes accepted it as the only plausible suggestion, without bothering to look it up. Only after seeing a reply such as this one did I realize my error and correct my ways. Fortunately or unfortunately, it also sensitized me to the word, such that seeing either "allot" used improperly, or "alot" used at all, causes me to shudder.
So obviously, your usage "no allot" (I have a hard time writing it even quoting, now, as my fingers just want to do the right thing! ) was doubly wrong, thus the AC's WTF which I'm sure a lot of others thought as well. Then you corrected the no > know, but /still/ skipped the allot > "a lot", while providing a wealth of very interesting information in the same post so obviously you're intelligent enough, which /must/ mean you weren't aware of the problem at all, thus this post, hoping to correct that oversight. As I said, I'm simply passing on the favor, as I learned about the difference myself from just such a post.
Duncan
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master,
and if you use the program, he is your master."
R Stallman
"Kelvins" are units and have been for 40 years.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I keep seeing all these comments on the blog about all that He has done for us, what He has bestowed upon us, that He has given us this sun for light and heat and beauty...
I really think H should get more of the credit though. He is merely a byproduct.
+5 informative for "RTFA", outstanding!
No, you shouldn't have said that either. You should have said "we should know a lot more than we do todday."
HTH. HAND.