Slashdot Mirror
Two Huge Holes In the Sun Spotted
An anonymous reader writes "Japanese scientists have spotted two huge holes on the sun's magnetic field, and it appears there is some reason to be concerned about. The holes, called coronal holes, are gateways for solar material and gas to spill out into space, according to space.com. The gaps in the sun's magnetic field make a hole through its atmosphere, letting gas out, NASA has said."
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/news20110111-corona-hole.html
more info...
Why is there reason to be "concerned"? It is an interesting find, but that solar gas won't do much to harm Earth.
*sniff *sniff*
"The Sun did it".
We all know it was Cowboy Neil.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I have a hole, gas comes out, but it doesn't do much to harm Earth.
Just because it has been detected now doesn't mean it hasn't been around for hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years already. So too early to say that these holes are anything to worry about. After all, the sun does coronal mass ejections quite often, some of which are aimed towards us, which while major events generally uneventful, maybe with some satellites knocked out.
Holes in the sun! Sun losing gas to space! "Probably time is finally taking a toll on the benevolent star, which has been toiling hard for millennia!"
I wouldn't exactly call this science journalism. No explanation why, what will happen, etc... The only link on the article is labeled "NASA", but points to the main page of this crappy website. To their credit they have a photo of the sun, but is from another solar space mission unrelated to the article.
Hey editors, how on earth did this awful link get onto the main page?
So if SOHO says Sol has holes, we're SOL?
Be relentless!
The way I see it, unless one of those holes were pointed straight at us for an extended time, which is impossible due to difference in the orbital velocity of Earth and the rotational velocity of the Sun, we have nothing to worry about, and even then we'd only get a few blanked-out satellites.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Don't freak out that there's now an opening in the corona. Freak out when a celestial lime slice gets wedged it.
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
Ah 2012 - thought the Mayans said Mother earth was going to laugh and reformat herself. Looks like Father Sun has a different choice for cooking us.
Ah 2012 - thought the Mayans said Mother earth was going to laugh and reformat herself. Looks like Father Sun has a different choice for cooking us.
Mayans never said anything about 2012 doomsday, they just have a calender that cycles every 1,872,000 days. It's like aliens believing the universe will explode because this primitive Western human tribes calender only goes up to the 31st of December and then suddenly.......ends......
The Sky Is Falling!
I really hate this urban legend, read the wikipedia article on the Mayan Calender.
Basically they had the Tzolk'in which provided a 260 day year (13 months of 20 days) which was used to plan ceremonies and events. Because that doesn't match up with the length of the year they developed the Haab which lasts 365 days this provided 18 months consisting of 20 days, with 5 "nameless" days.
However neither of these calenders providing a way of keeping track of the year, so the mayans worked out the year by using the Tzolk'in and Haab calenders, since those dates reset every 52 years the Mayans called that a Calender Round.
The Long Count was created so dates which occurred outside of the 52 year cycle could be stated, the end of the world myth exists because 1 Bakturn consists of 144,000 days. On December 21st 2012 this bakturn cycle ends, that doesn't mean the world will end to the Mayans the end of such a cycle is a time of celebration.
In short the Mayan calender system is a giant overly complicated mess.
So THAT is where all the sun spots went!
Extremely badly written article. The coronal holes over the south and north pole of the sun have basically always been there, and been predicted by solar wind models for at least 50 years. The news here is simply that the hinode spacecraft managed to image them conclusively for the first time.
No reason to be concerned. Trust me, I'm a solar scientist.
A solar fart.
My web domain.
Reminds me of an "educational" song I was exposed to when I was five or six:
The Sun is a mass,
of incandescent gas,
a gigantic nuclear furnace.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Visit spaceweather.com daily for a month or two, and keep an eye on the various Sun images on the left side. One is used to point out coronal holes, and you'll quickly realize how common they are. This may be related to the approaching solar maximum, though don't quote me on that.
I'm much more concerned about flare and mass ejection frequency. With all the satellites and poorly-shielded electrical circuits we rely upon, one or two wicked ejections aimed at Earth could turn a lot of gear into expensive junk.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
This site have a common profile for readers that should had been taken into account making the title of article. Something like "Sun farted. Oracle got it", or "We are toast, starting by Nokia". Should't be so bad, in other sites could had been "2012 doomsday true, Sun starting to break", "Another proof that global warming is a myth", or "The dangers of loose bullets"
So our sun is venting fuel.. Probably didn't like the 15% Ethenol in it.. If the sun sees fit to fertalize space with it - odds are my car won't like it either.
It's the same old thing as yesterday.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Mayans never said anything about 2012 doomsday, they just have a calender that cycles every 1,872,000 days. It's like aliens believing the universe will explode because this primitive Western human tribes calender only goes up to the 31st of December and then suddenly.......ends......
The thing is, something *does* happen at the end of the 31st of December – the earth ends it's current revolution around the sun.
Mayan calendars (there are many of them) pretty much all track something interesting... Some track the moon, the sun, various stars. The reason that the popular myth about the end of the world persists is actually that all that can be deciphered about this particular calendar is that the mayans believed that it tracked the beginning of the world – people imagine that when it resets the world will need to be recreated, and hence need to end first.
The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma They make a great children's CD, BTW.
More
Looking at the NASA link above, I think they have discovered a "Solar Goatse".
Now the trick will be getting the other solar systems to look at it...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
So the sun is farting?
These "holes" maybe let out 1 million atoms per cubic centimeter. That may sound like a lot, but on Earth this would be called a hard vacuum.
The Sun is also converting 6.2×10**11 kg of matter into energy per second and radiating it all away. One wonders that there is anything left after all of this time.
so the wife just asked what i want to do this afternoon.... it would be helpful if someone could clarify if we are all going to die or not?
because if we are I'm going to be god damned if i'm going to go home depot for supplies to fix things about the house.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
It wont even create a good aurora. We need a good M type flare for that. Bummer. The wife really wants to see a good aurora someday. We live to close to the city lights for any good viewing. We would have to drive out into the country. Well since we are approaching solar maximum, we might have to take a drive in the next year or two. Here is the link that describes the events: www.spaceweather.com "BEHEMOTH SUNSPOT 1158: Sunspot 1158 is growing rapidly (48 hour movie) and crackling with C-class solar flares. The active region is now more than 100,000 km wide with at least a dozen Earth-sized dark cores scattered beneath its unstable magnetic canopy. Earth-directed eruptions are likely in the hours ahead." Class M flares are good for viewing. Class X is where we lose electricity or radio/satellites.
There's a black cat caught in a high tree top
Seriously, can we get an edit button?
I wish the article would give some scientific reasons for why we should be concerned about "Two Huge Holes" and not leave it to the masses to make uneducated gesticulations. Does this mean that the sun is dying?
Of course its bad!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Whether it were proven to be dying tomorrow or a couple hundred years from now, we're nowhere close to being able to go anywhere or survive without it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It could not be anyone else's.
:Let's start a furore over solar cooling!!
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
God is going to pick the sun up like a bowling ball and toss it into the black hole in the center of the milky way. Probably on 12/21/2012
- Things are the way they are because they're coded that way -
"it appears there is some reason to be concerned about" Yeah! Let's all be concerned about this. That'll help.
So what is so special about the point of the orbit it happens to reach at that time? It's not even the perihel (closest point to the sun), which comes a few days later, nor the winter solstice (when the tilt of the earth's axis aligns with the radial vector of the orbit), which is shortly before Christmas. There's absolutely nothing remarkable about the point in orbit at 31st of December.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Woah! Revelations mentions 144,000!!! Coincidence? I think not!
It sounds like solar warming must be creating holes in its magnetic field!
At least you didn't make the same mistake the second time.
After decades of 'free' energy being stolen from the sun, the sun has finally had enough & started a protest. If the 'free' energy theft continues, according to sources close to the sun who wish to remain unnamed, then it will start sending DRM takedown notices to all solar panel owners. The sun's legal team insists that solar power harvesting is breaking the physical encryption it is using & is therefore covered by the DMCA.
The sun could not be reached for direct comment.
Hey! the sun is over 5 Billion years old. like us humans, it is bound to start showing its age.
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
Great. There's a hole in the Sun. Now all the helium will leak out and the Sun won't float in the sky anymore.
Sorry had to ask.
What else do you expect? The general populous to actually think rationally for a second and do some sort of basic fact checking?
OMG my sun might fart on us.
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
nt
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Give 'em a week and some crackpot's gonna say this'll cause the End Of The World in 2012. These holes have been around forever and now that we know about them, they'll surely kill us all.
Is this how a piece of the sun shoots out and hits passing federation science ships while its gravity threatens a long lost colony?
"There's absolutely nothing remarkable about the point in orbit at 31st of December."
Except for a standing wave of fireworks on the dark side of the Earth that last for 24hrs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You mean parlance; a parley is a discussion between two groups of people, especially in order to try to settle an argument.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Two holes with Gas shooting out.... come on people I'm in a deadlock as to which of the million jokes this generates.......
00101010
When the spewed out material hits mother earth in her face, will she spit or swallow?
$ unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep
The solar research community has known about coronal holes, and the potential impact of plasma which can flow through these "holes" on earth, for decades. This appears to be another "sky is falling" piece by people who are desperately awaiting the return of solar activity. The current solar cycle is a very late starter, and given that the "seasons" for space weather geeks (myself included) is 11-12 years long, one starts getting antsy when the long, dry solar minimum stretches a couple of years longer than expected. In short, "move along, nothing to see here."
Oh, like you haven't.