PC Pals Forum

General Discussion => Science & Nature => Topic started by: mistybear on October 17, 2008, 07:31

Title: The Sun.
Post by: mistybear on October 17, 2008, 07:31
                                                                          The Sun

                                                                             LINK (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html)
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Clive on October 17, 2008, 08:28
Yes, the Sun is not such a boring object as it appears to be! 
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: sam on October 17, 2008, 09:45
we had a wonderful talk about the Sun off Dr Lucie Green last night... she showed some fascinating observations.. made me realize why I got into all of this magnetic physics...  though Clive, its fairly boring at the moment... 1 sunspot is a bit crap..
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Simon on October 17, 2008, 09:54
Guess this should be called a hot topic.  :)
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: mistybear on October 17, 2008, 09:56
 :groan:
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Simon on October 17, 2008, 10:04
:ithank:
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Sandra on October 17, 2008, 13:20
Quote
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots.

How strange that even though man made CO2 production hasnt reduced at all during this period, the world has actually been cooling over the last few years which coincided with the lessening of the suns activity.
Its a shame that they cant tax us on the number of sunspots per annum or they would have to admit that global warming being man made was a load of b******s and was really due to natural causes and is cyclic  :o:
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: sam on October 17, 2008, 15:54
well you can't really take such a simple approach to this - sunspots aren't the only things going on. The Sun still pumps out a lot of energy during this time... and also that article is slightly incorrect in that it was written when there was sunspot activity, though only 1!
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Rik on October 17, 2008, 16:16
Quote from: sam on October 17, 2008, 15:54
The Sun still pumps out a lot of energy during this time...

Only on P3 though. ;D :scoot:
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: sam on October 17, 2008, 16:43
 :laugh:
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: Sandra on October 18, 2008, 00:36
Look at the evidence Sam, periods of low solar activity, ie sunspots, which are well noted to be cyclic, coincide with a drop in the earths temperature over the same period.
The converse is also true, increase in activity = increase in temperature.
Its been that way for millenia, even before man evolved.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then theres a fairly good chance that its a duck  :o:

The material that has the most effect on climate change is actually water vapour, but they arent doing anything about that because thats another thing, like solar activity, that they cant tax us on or control.  ::)
Title: Re: The Sun.
Post by: sam on October 18, 2008, 10:26
well I'm not going to disagree that the Sun is crucial to life here on Earth, but there is no way that this short change in the Sun's activity would have caused the changes we have observed. The Maunder Minimum lasted 60 years.... we are talking about small changes in the total number not it going down to almost zero.