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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...
I have a hole, gas comes out, but it doesn't do much to harm Earth.
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?
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
Well, I've been a ham radio operator for a long time, and have seen this sort of thing occasionally.
No, it won't directly harm us, but it could wreak havoc on the radio spectrum.
Depending on what exactly happens, we hams may see some terrific "skip" conditions on the shortwave
bands, or we may experience a near-complete wipe-out where nothing gets through, let alone bouncing
off a layer in the upper atmosphere. It may also disrupt some satellite links depending on the position of
the various satellites relative to the wave of incoming particles/stuff and which way the satellites are aimed
towards their ground stations.
Folks in higher latitudes may be treated to an incredible display of "Northern Lights" or "Southern Lights" as appropriate.
Considering we're just now coming out of a minimum in the 11 year sunspot cycle, this is indeed an interesting event.
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.
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.