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The Sun's 'Quiet Period' Explained

Posted by Soulskill on from the ra-needs-naps-too dept.

Arvisp writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "Solar physicists may have discovered why the Sun recently experienced a prolonged period of weak activity. The most recent so-called 'solar minimum' occurred in December 2008. Its drawn-out nature extended the total length of the last solar cycle — the repeating cycle of the Sun's activity — to 12.6 years, making it the longest in almost 200 years. The new research suggests that the longer-than-expected period of weak activity may have been linked to changes in the way a hot soup of charged particles called plasma circulated in the Sun."

3 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Solar Cooling! Man is at it again! by egandalf · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I sincerely hope moderators understand tongue in cheek humor.

    Surely you jest. These are, after all, slashdot moderators you're talking about. I think you're just as likely to get scathing comments from people rampaging at the (overly literal) idea that we should fire nukes into the sun. "But you'll set the sun on fire! Think of the children!" et al.

    Now that I've mentioned it as well, I expect similar results.

    --
    Those who have telepathy have no need to RTFA.
  2. Re:Solar Cooling! Man is at it again! by Surt · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Oh my gawd! Solar cooling! Won't someone thinking of the children! This is obviously the work of man and industry. According to all known publications on global warming, any deviation from historic trends means man is completely behind the deviation.

    We should immediately start nuking the sun to spur increased solar activity.

    I sincerely hope moderators understand tongue in cheek humor.

    Sorry, from the moderation so far, you are out of luck on moderators understanding tongue in cheek humor.
    Next time, try tongue in ass humor. I think you'll have better luck with this age demographic.

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  3. Re:hot soup? by spun · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    [Dr. Evil.] No, Mr. Powers, I expect you to die. Even after they pay me the money, I'm still going to melt every city on the planet with hot soupy magm, er, plasma. Release the preschoolers! Mr. Powers, you'll notice that all the preschoolers have laser beams attached to their heads...

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    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton