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Cosmic Ray Intensity Reaches Highest Levels In 50 years
An anonymous reader writes "A NASA probe found that cosmic ray intensities in 2009 had increased by almost 20 percent beyond anything seen in the past 50 years. Such cosmic rays arise from distant supernova explosions and consist mostly of protons and heavier subatomic particles — just one cosmic ray could disable unlucky satellites or even put a mission to Mars in jeopardy."
Clearly we need more energy-efficient stars.
"It's Cosmic Rays mutating the electrons."
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
In this Brian de Palma film, a mission to rescue astronauts stranded on the titular planet finds a hill shaped like a giant face, with alien technology inside.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Will the legacy of environmental disaster that was George W. Bush's presidency never end?
#DeleteChrome
Cosmic rays damaging electronic equipment? I've been using this computer for years and my RAM is doing just fi
I was wondering, "Why are cosmic rays so dangerous, It's just protons and electrons, just like the solar wind".
However, there's a huge energy difference between the two.
The particles in cosmic radiation have 1x10^20eV and the solar wind is 1x10^3eV
So, while it's the same "stuff", the cosmic particles are moving a lot faster relative to us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_radiation
Yay! This is our chance to use up all the fossil fuels real quick-like and then by the time the cold spell is over we'll all be using nuclear and solar panels.
FYI. Cosmic rays have been known to cause bit-flips in RAM.
But the odds are astronomical.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
We know this because we can look for these...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmogenic_isotope#Natural
in the geological record.
Unless of course they were planted there by [insert diety] in which case - ha ha you've been punk'd(TM)!
Not only that, but where's the proof that humankind survived?
The Sun has been very quiet recently, so this is not surprising. Now that the Sunspots are back and the Sun is getting more active, I would expect things to go back to normal.
Terrible plan. When the next sun cycle starts and the cloud cover is gone, global warming will hit us like a train.
Better idea is to use geothermal heating to keep us all warm during an ice age. The technology exists today but there is no reason to use it while energy is cheap. A period of rapid global cooling would cause energy prices to skyrocket as electric, gas, oil and wood furnaces blaze to keep people warm. The coal plants will roar ahead like nothing is wrong, wind and solar won't be doing very well but that's ok - they dont make up much of the grid right now anyway.
If global cooling became a real problem, food shortage would actually be the most serious impediment to our survival. Extra rain would be good, but the reduced sunlight would hurt crops catastrophically and the average surface temperature really doesn't need to go down that much for crops to be impacted.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Why didn't you provide any citations? Perhaps because it was disproved in 2007.
Thirty seconds with google and the keywords "cosmic rays global warming" brought a wealth of stories describing research which found no correlation of any kind between cosmic ray flux and cloud cover. Sure, you'll find articles describing this theory, but it's called a "hypothesis," and "controversial" at best. And all those stories are older than the 2008 analysis of MODIS data.
I can see the fnords!
I wouldn't raise alarm too much, cosmic rays affect a space craft in mainly three ways: Single Even Upset (SEU), Single Event Latchup (SEL), and Total Ionization Dose (TID) measured in kRad. The higher cosmic rays increase the TID, but all these satellites are built for it and it shouldn't raise an alarm except for very long term missions. SEUs and SELs are what the phrase "just one cosmic ray could disable unlucky satellites or even put a mission to Mars in jeopardy." is mentioning. SEUs aren't too much too worry about, usually nothing too harmful, just a few errors and at worst a reset of some subsystems. The bad one is the SELs. These can cause a temporary short and potentially cause damage. The key thing with SEUs and SELs is that they're typically temporary and the spacecraft's power systems nowadays can easily handle them. The solid state switches/fuses they started with Cassini (and are now typical for NASA missions) are very effective (accidently proven so during integration) and can cut off a shorted subsystem quite fast and prevent damage.
In a nutshell, don't get your panties in a bunch.
I'm totally going to clear out my Bugzilla queue tomorrow:
Bug 13272: Memory leak in widget_process_task()
RESOLVED/INVALID: cosmic rays
Bug 11207: Database corrupted by invalid user input
RESOLVED/INVALID: cosmic rays
Bug 12304: "if (A = B)" in the code where clearly "if (A == B)" was intended
RESOLVED/INVALID: cosmic rays
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
SUV's are responsible for global warming. Damn them!
SUVs are partly responsible for global warming, but so are compact cars (which are less responsible than SUVs). But as to the "damn them", considering that more people die in SUVs per passenger mile than any other type of vehicle, I'd say Darwin is working hard to get rid of the SUV drivers.
SUVs are so dangerous because of a lot of factors:
BTW and offtopic, SUV is an acronym, not a contraction. The apostrophe doesn't belong there.
Free Martian Whores!
"Imagine, if you like, that we just don't know enough about the system to say one way or the other whether cosmic rays influence low cloud cover?"
there is a lot we don't know, but we do know that doesn't happen.
"Well, I for one don't think the science is EVER settled."
that statement makes me wonder if you know what science is? by definition science is never settled.
That doesn't mean everything that pops into someones head is possible, or that we don't understand anything, or that the unknown is unknowable.
The data gathered in the linked paper is from one event. it is in no way strong enough evidence to counter the 22 other events where this did NOT happen. Just looking at the data shows that there is no statiscal correlation.
"Further research is needed"
Only if they take a new tack, the current equopement doesn't show any statical correlation.
If any one in this post has a religious faith on this issue, it appear to be you. You do realize that that paper is not about global warming at all?
He didn't say they don't cause "Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds". He said there is no link to global warming, and there isn't.
"As I keep saying in these types of discussion, the "team" warmists have all the funding, even though much of their research is bollocks."
Both those statements are provable false.
"hey peer review each others papers, use each others data (without archiving it for replication) and cite each other all the time,"
yes, as does every else, Including coutries that would like very much to show that man has no impact on global warming.
The BIB monney is in man not ahving an effect. Very powerfull companies and countries have a lot more money to spend if it's real.
All the data points to it being man made. There is not correlation with the INCREASED temperature and suna ctivity. In short, when cosmic rays and sun activity are in a phase for a 'cool' earth, the temperature doesn't return to pre industrial numbers of similar events.
Add ot it, it should be COOLER do to increase contrails and particulate matter; which is in fact helping keep the temperature down.
If you bother to calm down and think,you would notice that it's the anti warmers that are cherry picking data. The will ignore volumes of data to highlight one flaw.
Do you know whaer the money and prize is in science? doing studies the disprove previous theory, or discovering something radically new. It is in the best interest of corporate paid, and some emerging government paid scientist to show that man has no effect on global temperature, not to mention OPEC.The most interested, most heavily invest, and powerful groups can't find data to show that the earths warming isn't man made. Thye people making big money are books written by deniers. Any scientist that can disprove the man isn't impacting the global temperature would get wheel barrels of money from those groups.
So, your PhD is in...?
Finally:
Linking to a study that most people wont't be able to get to is BAD FORM in the extreme.
Too bad for you that not only can I get to the study, I had previously read the draft.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on