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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
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:05PM (2 children)
I seem to remember being a bit cynical in the past, but I will withhold judgement until I've delved into the paper(s), or seen a review from someone I trust. I'm wondering what he means by "observations" that go back 1000 years, for example. We didn't have any accurate measurement devices that far back, and we certainly weren't counting sunspots, for example.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:10PM (1 child)
Since c. 1749, continuous monthly averages of sunspot activity have been available and are shown here as reported by the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center, World Data Center for the Sunspot Index, at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. These figures are based on an average of measurements from many different observatories around the world. Prior to 1749, sporadic observations of sunspots are available. These were compiled and placed on consistent monthly framework by Hoyt & Schatten (1998a, 1998b).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:17PM
http://www.sidc.be/silso/datafiles [www.sidc.be]