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posted by martyb on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the time-and-tide-waits-for-nobody dept.

One of the big questions in solar physics is why the sun's activity follows a regular cycle of 11 years. Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), an independent German research institute, now present new findings, indicating that the tidal forces of Venus, Earth and Jupiter influence the solar magnetic field, thus governing the solar cycle.

[...] To accomplish this result, the scientists systematically compared historical observations of solar activity from the last thousand years with planetary constellations, statistically proving that the two phenomena are linked. "There is an astonishingly high level of concordance: what we see is complete parallelism with the planets over the course of 90 cycles," said Frank Stefani, lead author of the study. "Everything points to a clocked process."

[...] Besides influencing the 11-year cycle, planetary tidal forces may also have other effects on the sun. For example, it is also conceivable that they change the stratification of the plasma in the transition region between the interior radiative zone and the outer convection zone of the sun (the tachocline) in such a way that the magnetic flux can be conducted more easily. Under those conditions, the magnitude of activity cycles could also be changed, as was once the case with the Maunder Minimum, when there was a strong decline in solar activity for a longer phase.

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-corroborates-planetary-tidal-solar.html


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:58AM (4 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:58AM (#884580)

    Possibly, but the number, mass, and period of planet orbits all interact with the tidal cycles, so you wouldn't be able to back-calculate very well, but it should certainly be part of the equation now.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:31AM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:31AM (#884588) Journal

    Sure, it should be combined with other methods. But it could be used on stars that don't have dimming events that can be seen from Earth. Not sure how it would stack up against the radial velocity method.

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    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:58PM (2 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:58PM (#884888)

      Absolutely agreed. :) Astrophysics is one of those hobbies I always thought I'd delve into more as I got older, but the toys (really good telescopes) have gotten much more expensive and I can't afford it. And frankly I don't have the time- too many other things to do, like read and write online! :o

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:27PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:27PM (#884931)

        You can still study actual astrophysics, you'll learn a lot more than you will by just watching the sky. There are some excellent mid-level books, I was gonna go grab one of my favorite ones that is shorter and geared towards non-academics but it is in storage.

        Seriously, I recommend some light astronomy learning for everybody if only to give you knowledge of the universe and an appreciation for Sagan's quote “The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

        Personally I don't doubt there is other life in the universe, you'd have to be astoundingly self-centered to believe that. However I won't place bets on whether they have visited Earth ;)

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 25 2019, @03:12AM

          by RS3 (6367) on Sunday August 25 2019, @03:12AM (#885052)

          Yes, and thanks for the encouragement. Wish I knew who you were. Some ACs are really awesome here. Some I'd delete and block if I could. Frustrating not knowing who I'm writing to.

          In fact my university, as I'm sure is true of others, has an open-house every summer with quite a few telescopes on the rooftop, and many classrooms with exciting (yes, I'm a nerd) lectures, demonstrations, various presentations, etc. One I loved was "The Universe in 3D" - you'd don 3D glasses and they'd start with us and our solar system, and expand out until they covered everything known. Another was Mars rovers in 3D- you'd see Mars in 3D (from rover footage). Many on black holes, planetarium shows, exoplanets, neutron stars and X-ray bursts, etc.

          Some believe that aliens walk among us.