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Scientists Set Bold Plan For Future Exploration of the Sun
coondoggie writes "Our understanding of space weather and the impact of space around Earth has greatly increased in the last 10 years and if the ambitious plan the National Research Council can be implemented, the next 10 years will generate tons more scientific insight. The National Research Council issued its second research recommendation report, 'Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society,' which represents 18 months of research by more than 85 solar and space physicists and space system engineers and lays out major scientific goals for solar exploration on the next 10 years."
Manned exploration of the sun. Now that would be bold.
The first person to make the "go at night" joke should be permabanned.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
4 posts: 2 "at nights", 2 "manned expeditions".
Carry on, Slashdot.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
They're going to land at night.
In other news, India has just announced a manned landing on the Sun by 2019.
you're a fucking idiot.
If you honestly don't think that an atmosphere has something to do with it you really need to work on that science education.
Take the moon, for instance. Given its distance from the sun it should be able the same temperature on the surface as on Earth. But is it? No. During the day it's 125C. At night? -150C. Also see Venus, which, due to its atmosphere, has an average surface temperature more than double that of Mercury despite being twice the distance from the sun and receiving less than 25% of the solar output.
The sun provides the heat. The atmosphere keeps it there and distributes it around. Different gasses have different absorption properties. Carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor are all high on the list for trapping heat energy.
You will have more luck convincing the Pope that indeed, god does not actually exist.
I'm sure his holiness is fully aware. The idea is to not let the proletariat catch on.
What a coincidence, I was just talking with some of my colleagues at the research lab the other day: "Hey, you know what's really hot?" ... after an awkward 15 minute silence where we realize we couldn't name a single chick in recent popular culture to pretend like we were still cool, some smart ass finally says, "I know what's really hot, the Sun. It's so hot you can probably feel its heat all the way on Earth."
I replied with great excitement, "Holy shit Dr. Jones, you might be on to something big there."
We all rushed to the library to find our favorite table unoccupied. After ten hours of heavy literature searching, and many trips by our grad students to fetch us coffee, we finally had to quit when the library started to close. We tried to buy some time by having Dr. Adler flirt with the librarian. Despite breaking his personal record, he only got us another 14.3 seconds.
So despite our exhaustive efforts, we had to give up and had to conclude: no one has ever measured the Sun's output before. We thought we were onto something there, but without any data we couldn't corroborate our idea that the Sun heats the Earth. At first it came as such a shock to us, not only was it an amazing idea, but we could be the first scientists to ever think of it. In retrospect it seemed so simple, as all amazing research does.
But eventually we felt like giving up, becoming depressed after arguing whether measuring the Sun's output could be done for only a few million dollars or if we would need at least a few tens of millions of dollars. It clearly was a project that would require a large team and infrastructure, well beyond anything achievable by past scientists, or a single person. I think the guys lost their motivation to pursue such novel work, but not any more. Just wait until I tell them there is someone on Slashdot that supports the new theory too.
Hey all scientists who have ambitious 'plans' to "experiment" with the Sun... Please DON'T!!! DON'T FUCK WITH THE SUN!!! Just look at it, okay? Do not "play" with it! It's working, it's been working fine fir BILLIONS OF YEARS!!! When something as important as THE SUN is working, leave it alone! Don't fix it!!!
Glad you asked... http://m.tgdaily.com/space-features/65491-why-is-the-sun-so-round