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The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

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Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#51

Post by TheBlight »

c0brac0bra wrote: post #32
temp0826 wrote: post #22

I think there is a more interesting (and longer scale) trend that is less talked about, that the last couple solar cycles have been overall less intense (less activity/spots at the maximums)- http://solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png I wish that chart went further back to see if there is a greater cycle at play. At a glance it looks like this cycle is a slight rebound over the last.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#52

Post by lukan »

dredmorbius wrote: post #45
contravariant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want something to make it easier to find the sun ? Anyway the sun's magnetic fields is ridiculously weak on earth.

Well, one always has to consider the first manned expedition to the Sun and how they'll navigate. Telling time of day would be the first problem as it's always high noon. And star sightings might prove challenging, at least at optical frequencies. (Am now thinking of an SF story set on the Sun in which navigation and timekeeping play critical roles....)

In that SF story, I would be far more interested in the tech, that allows human life (or anything we bring) to withstand that slightly bigger problem called heat and radiation.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#53

Post by [deleted] »

TheBlight wrote: post #51
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

[deleted]

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#54

Post by idiotsecant »

TheBlight wrote: post #51
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

Is it ironic? Right now it's getting too hot so we want fewer greenhouse gasses, in the future it might be cold and we want more. I think it's less ironic and more just the intentional infant science of planet-scale climate engineering

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#55

Post by dredmorbius »

lukan wrote: post #52
dredmorbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one always has to consider the first manned expedition to the Sun and how they'll navigate. Telling time of day would be the first problem as it's always high noon. And star sightings might prove challenging, at least at optical frequencies. (Am now thinking of an SF story set on the Sun in which navigation and timekeeping play critical roles....)

In that SF story, I would be far more interested in the tech, that allows human life (or anything we bring) to withstand that slightly bigger problem called heat and radiation.

Pshaw! Trifling details.

(Focusing on the non-obvious problems might make for a more interesting and/or fantastical story.)

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#56

Post by lukan »

ck2 wrote: post #23
michaelteter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a cosmic timescale, it's practically instant.

On a solar scale though earth goes through a full orbit in just a year, Mars two years. It is interesting that Jupiter has an 11 year orbit and that kind of matches the flip, might just be coincidence but that mass has a huge tug though. Sun is only 1000 times the mass of Jupiter, if you think of it like a "failed star" it's kinda like a pseudo binary? Eh I am grasping at straws.

If Jupiter was a failed star, it failed big time.

"Although Jupiter would need to be about 75 times more massive to fuse hydrogen and become a star,[66] its diameter is sufficient as the smallest red dwarf may be only slightly larger in radius than Saturn."

It got as big as it could be, though.

"Theoretical models indicate that if Jupiter had over 40% more mass, the interior would be so compressed that its volume would decrease despite the increasing amount of matter. For smaller changes in its mass, the radius would not change appreciably.[63] As a result, Jupiter is thought to have about as large a diameter as a planet of its composition and evolutionary history can achieve.[64] The process of further shrinkage with increasing mass would continue until appreciable stellar ignition was achieved"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#57

Post by gmiller123456 »

deepsun wrote: post #48
contravariant wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want something to make it easier to find the sun ? Anyway the sun's magnetic fields is ridiculously weak on earth.

Why, yes. It's really hard to find sun in fog, which is frequent at sea. And you really want it's location to be precise for navigation.

The Vikings supposedly had a "sunstone" (cordierite crystal) that could help find the Sun through clouds or fog. I did buy a piece and wasn't able to get any good results, but my life didn't depend on it.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#58

Post by lukan »

dredmorbius wrote: post #55
lukan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that SF story, I would be far more interested in the tech, that allows human life (or anything we bring) to withstand that slightly bigger problem called heat and radiation.

Pshaw! Trifling details. (Focusing on the non-obvious problems might make for a more interesting and/or fantastical story.)

Ah, a energy force field it is then.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#59

Post by stanislavb »

gleenn wrote: post #3

Interestingly this happens every 11 years and also their is a longer cycle called the Hale cycle which is double the length at 22 years. It flips from a mostly dipole where the poles match the orientation of earth to a reverse and much more irregular magenetic orientation. I didn't see anything about how this really affects Earth directly other than what I knew previously about sun spots make Coronal Mass Ejections s…

Thank you so much. I came to the comments looking for a similar explanation.

Re: The sun's magnetic field is about to flip

#60

Post by hughesjj »

TheBlight wrote: post #51
c0brac0bra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall back a few years reading some articles speaking about the sun entering in a Grand Solar Minimum cycle similar to the Maunder minimum, and that the result could be global cooling, etc. Not sure if there's been additional research or conjecture since then.

I'm convinced in a few hundred/thousand years scientists are going to be urging politicians to figure out how to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere due to cooling from cyclic perturbations of Earth's orbit. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy the irony.

I don't think it would be any more ironic than a house using the heater in the winter and ac in the summer

Also, acidification is another problem of co2. Honestly you might rather release methane or refrigerant if your goal was only to heat/insulate the atmosphere with minimal changes to chemistry, but I'm not a chemist etc

Also never forget the great oxygenation event and the azola cooling the planet to the point of mass extinction and snowball earth

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