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Sunspot Activity Continues To Drop

slreboy writes "The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. The year 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87 percent)..."

23 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. An Inconvenient Preemptive Strike by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states that bodies in a system must remain in equilibrium. So if we're experiencing global warming where are we getting that energy from? It must be coming from somewhere?

    The answer, fellow scientists, is that we are stealing that energy from the Sun.

    Yes, my charts and ramblings reveal that our greenhouse gases are trapping sunlight ... sunlight that would return to the Sun and heat it back up causing sunspots. I am currently drafting a bill that will move sunspots to the endangered phenomena list. That same bill will introduce that list and hopefully this will be reason enough to form it unlike Senator Kerry's attempt to create the list when he saw Rosie O'Donnell exercising (or so he thought).

    Gentlemen, we must act now. There is no more time for debating and arguing. The sunspots are going away and without that, we may lose our natural magnetic storms and maybe even the precious Aurora Borealis. Our Northern Lights are in danger while you sit back here comfortably in your chairs. Today we are polluters in the hands of an angry environment tomorrow we may be dead. We have angered the environment and now we must face the wrath of the environment. Including, but not limited to, the loss of sunspots.

    I don't know about you but when I was a kid, we celebrated sunspots with our parents. Upwards we gazed directly into the sun, fueling the optometry industry. Yes, sunspots create jobs and foster growth. Do you want to share sunspot gazing with your children and their children? I know I do.

    But all is not lost. The environment is injured and may be weak enough for us to stop it before it kills us all. I propose a preemptive strike now while we still have time. We could sneak in special units disguised in ponchos and Birkenstock's with thermonuclear weapons that would devastate the environment and save us from certain death at its hands. China has already rendered the environment obsolete and it is our turn to follow suit. Gentlemen, the question today is not if we should deal a final blow to the environment but when.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:An Inconvenient Preemptive Strike by rackserverdeals · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're not stealing the sun's energy.

      They sun spots have realized we were watching them and it turns out they are shy. They are just on the other side of the sun now.

      --
      Dual Opteron < $600
    2. Re:An Inconvenient Preemptive Strike by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, the sun has just discovered industrial-strength clearasil.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    3. Re:An Inconvenient Preemptive Strike by ArsonSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think it's called clear-a-sol

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  2. Oh noes! Our star is dying by damburger · · Score: 5, Funny

    Better send a huge mushroom shaped spaceship to fire a bomb into it!

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  3. it's stuff like this by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's stuff like this that makes me ask when will those neo-republicons take global warming seriously??? There's carbon filling up everywhere, so much the sun is losing her spots, and we just sit here and do nothing about it!!!! We need more diamonds!!!! That will get rid of the carbon!! Obama will fix it. He'll give a cadillacic converter to every car, we'll be converting carbon to diamonds every day as we drive. Diamonds are the solution!!!

    --
    Qxe4
    1. Re:it's stuff like this by tgatliff · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am old fashion kind of guy myself. Meaning, I want my air just like it the dinosaurs had it.. Thick and chocked full of that CO2....

    2. Re:it's stuff like this by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

      Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in one god. And his name is Zorgo. And he lives in that lake.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  4. more fun with statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    There's a direct correlation between sunspot activity and the stock market and the economy.

    Therefore once sunspots start again the economy will be okay and the stock market will rebound.

    1. Re:more fun with statistics by eln · · Score: 4, Funny

      The boom-bust cycle that has plagued the economy for so long is clearly due to the Sun's influence. Our only hope of a stable economy is to destroy the Sun once and for all.

      For too long we've been at the mercy of the whims of the Sun. Sure, we built that fancy iron core and produced a magnetic field to protect us from the harshest of the Sun's radiation, but the Sun still has almost total control over our precious climate. This situation is simply untenable. Millenia of effort and animal sacrifice have shown that the Sun simply cannot be negotiated with...our only chance is a massive nuclear strike.

    2. Re:more fun with statistics by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's ridiculous. It's obviously the other way around. Once the economy rebounds, the sun will return to its previous level of sunspot activity.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:more fun with statistics by Missing_dc · · Score: 4, Funny

      our only chance is a massive nuclear strike.

      I'd say we are currently in the perfect position to nuke it from orbit!!

      --
      How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
  5. Re:Here we go... by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 2, Funny

    But how can I tie this to a poticial ideology? I hate fact based science.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  6. Re:Maybe we're on the wrong side of the sun? by eln · · Score: 2, Funny

    Good point...after decades of studying sunspot activity, it's only natural for the Sun to get self-conscious about everyone staring at its blemishes all the time. It's only natural it would try and hide them by turning the other way.

  7. Re:Here we go... by geekoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Facts do have a liberal bias.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  8. Re:I wonder.. by somersault · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually, no it's discovered clearasol.

    Thankyou, I'll be here all week!

    --
    which is totally what she said
  9. Re:I know your being funny, but for are other read by blackfrancis75 · · Score: 5, Funny

    As MC Hawking clearly states:

    "You can't win, you can't break even, you can't leave the game,
    'cause entropy will take it all 'though it seems a shame.
    The second law, as we now know, is quite clear to state,
    that entropy must increase and not dissipate.

    Creationists always try to use the second law, to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
    The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
    only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
    The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
    so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!"

  10. Re:Here we go... by ArcherB · · Score: 3, Funny

    You are missing a whole bunch of ~'s

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  11. the answer is obvious by Darth · · Score: 2, Funny

    The sun is outsourcing its sun spot activity to another star in a less economically developed solar system.

    --
    Darth --
    Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
  12. Re:they also go down when gun ownership goes down by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 2, Funny

    whodathunkit

    So basically we need to change the extent of gun ownership in either direction every day.

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  13. Re:grammar police by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Sum of my best friends are homophones, you insensitive clod!

  14. Clearly it's IBM's doing. by bugeaterr · · Score: 2, Funny

    They are acting like a jilted lover after being turned down by Sun.
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/162748/sun_blundered_by_turning_down_ibm.html

  15. Re:Maybe we're on the wrong side of the sun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    How can there be sunspots on the dark side of the sun?