Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:48AM (5 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:48AM (#884609) Journal

    TESS could last a long time, as long as its reaction wheels don't die. It has a stable orbit.

    It might be too cheap for anyone to want to service it. Starship is going to disrupt the economics of this. Maybe you can launch a very cheap robotic servicing mission for TESS, or just launch many assembly line produced space telescopes so that there is complete coverage of the night sky forever.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:05PM (4 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 24 2019, @04:05PM (#884798) Journal

    The problem with the "many telescope" solution is that you need an overlap period that you can use to calibrate them. We've got a bad history of letting one die before the replacement is ready, and that means the measurements can't be directly compared. Better would be to keep TESS working, or something similar.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:10AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:10AM (#885114) Journal

      Starship is a game changer. There will need to be major adjustments in how NASA works.

      Ultimately, I think we will see NASA launching at least 10x more probes and space telescopes for the same budget. Slash the testing periods (see JWST for how bad this can get), use a mass produced common platform for the majority of spacecraft, and just choose your instruments. Miniaturization in size and mass will not be needed, which will reduce costs. Truly gigantic space telescopes could be built with modules that dock with each other instead of fragile unfolding designs.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 25 2019, @06:38PM (1 child)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 25 2019, @06:38PM (#885292) Journal

        But you will still need to validate the readings. It's extremely important that there be overlap, or you lose a lot of certainty when you do comparisons. These are instruments working at the edge of what we can do, and while you can depend on them to be "about the same", you need to calculate correction factors by comparing them against the instruments that you've already been collecting data from.

        So keeping the tools that you've got working, working longer is a *real* benefit. Or, of course, overlapping the readings.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 25 2019, @07:23PM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 25 2019, @07:23PM (#885323) Journal

          I would like TESS, Hubble, etc. to work indefinitely. But it remains to be seen if there is willpower to make that happen even with ultra low launch costs. TESS cost under $300 million total. What will servicing it cost (manned or robotic)?

          This is what TESS is collecting over the first two years. [wikipedia.org] There is about 8 months left. The mission will obviously be extended, but we don't know how they will choose to operate going forward. As you can see, some of the zones only get 27 days of observation time out of 2 years. So the overlap may be less important than starting fresh and getting continuous coverage of parts of the sky.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:12AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 25 2019, @09:12AM (#885115) Journal

      Also, killing SLS/Orion (and preventing a successor) can free up a lot of budget. Some of that might go back to manned spaceflight, but there will be more money for spamming telescopes.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]