Strange Doings on the Sun
online.wsj.com
Strange Doings on the Sun
1–10 of 38 posts
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#2Ho-ly shit, the comments. It's almost like it was linked from Drudge or Fox News.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#3I do wonder having recently read about a comet with multiple tails that this is related. http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/november/nasas-hubble-sees-as...
Though the record of sun sunspots is not a long record and with that this could very well be normal only outside the sample range we currently have and goes against all patterns currently cleaned.
Also in a probably unrelated pattern, the northern hemisphere had fewer hurricanes than normal this season.
One aspect that does add to my curiosity is that the northern pole has moved and the southern one has not, I was unaware that magnetic poles moved independantly - though no mention of monopoles. So I'm somewhat curious too this and hopefully somebody will enlighten.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#4Ho-ly shit, the comments. It's almost like it was linked from Drudge or Fox News.
Indeed the orioginal article comments do have a somewhat colourful selection from the walks of human life. Like yourself I like to read the comments and the linked article original comments before dipping in, but in this case nothing was easily added to the conversation, though I saw no spam or sdrawkcab level posts.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#5Ho-ly shit, the comments. It's almost like it was linked from Drudge or Fox News.
From the comments: "No mention of the four comets currently in the Solar System. I'm no genius, but don't you think four electromagnetic balls of energy might have an effect on the Sun's magnetic field."
(In case anyone here isn't aware, comets are basically big balls of ice, not "electromagnetic balls of energy")
This comment makes me think that there is remaining ground to be covered in the "online commenting" field. Youtube comments, for all they are made fun of, do a decent job of allowing video authors to respond to particularly inane or confused comments and provide clarification. Those comments are typically then stuck to the top of the comment section, allowing other commenters to see the correction.
Perhaps a commenting system that allows scientific educators of various sorts to single out comments and write highly visible responses to them could 1) improve the state of online commenting, 2) increase scientific literacy among the general public.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#6Since most of our GPS and cellular devices have been developed and deployed during a period of unusually weak solar electromagnetic activity, I've been wondering and worrying about how big of a disaster is waiting to happen when the sun returns to "normal."
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#7Since most of our GPS and cellular devices have been developed and deployed during a period of unusually weak solar electromagnetic activity, I've been wondering and worrying about how big of a disaster is waiting to happen when the sun returns to "normal."
That would seem to fly in the face of what the article said, specifically the 2003 solar storm and this:
"Several solar scientists speculated that the sun may be returning to a more relaxed state after an era of unusually high activity that started in the 1940s."
Would you mind elaborating on the weak period of solar activity?
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#8Ho-ly shit, the comments. It's almost like it was linked from Drudge or Fox News.
The WSJ comment community is a) right wing and b) terminally stupid. I am not trying to suggest that the two are equivalent, but whenever there's a story like this 80% of the comments consist of dismissing global warming as a hoax.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#9I do wonder having recently read about a comet with multiple tails that this is related. http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/november/nasas-hubble-sees-as... Though the record of sun sunspots is not a long record and with that this could very well be normal only outside the sample range we currently have and goes against all patterns currently cleaned. Also in a probably unrelated pattern, the northern hemisphere had fewe…
Technically that is an asteroid with a comet-like tail. The main difference is where it comes from and the type of material it's made out of.
Re: Strange Doings on the Sun
#10Given the tools we have to detect the sun's 'doings' today are magnanimously more sophisticated than 200 years ago, could it be that 200 years ago several fluctuations were missed because the overall balance still remained throughout the cycles?