tagged w/ Sun
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The expected reduction in the Sun's activity will not have a big impact on global temperatures, Met Office research showsA reduction in the Sun's activity is expected this century, but is unlikely to do much to slow global warming due to greenhouse gases, scientists said on Monday.
link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/24/sun-changes-global-warmingThe expected reduction in the Sun's activity will not have a big impact on global... more
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A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles past Earth on Tuesday, as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun overnight (10:59 p.m. ET Sunday, or 0359 GMT Monday), according to SpaceWeather.com.
The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory and the STEREO spacecraft, observed the massive sun storm.
A barrage of charged particles triggered by the outburst is expected to hit Earth at around 9 a.m. ET Tuesday, according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [Video and photos of the solar flare]
NOAA's forecasters say this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005. As a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be rerouted, the agency's deputy administrator, Kathy Sullivan, said Monday at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans.
Scientists call these electromagnetic bursts "coronal mass ejections," and they are closely studied because they can produce potentially harmful geomagnetic storms when electrically charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's magnetic field.
In addition to generating stronger than normal displays of Earth's auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), geomagnetic storms aimed directly at our planet can also disrupt satellites in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage other electronic infrastructures.
"There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth," SpaceWeather.com said in an alert. "A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet."
unday's solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it just on the verge of being an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm. M-class sun storms are powerful but midrange, while C-class flares are weaker.
Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares. SDO scientists said these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.
The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Currently, our planet's nearest star is in the midst of Solar Cycle 24, and activity is expected to ramp up toward solar maximum in 2013.A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles past... more
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Have you seen the sun lately? No, no, don't look right at it with your eyes. Ouch. I'm not asking about the weather, either, or at least Earth's weather. The sun itself is a sight to behold right now, and it is creating some fascinating space weather as well.
link:http://news.discovery.com/space/have-you-really-seen-the-sun-110928.htmlHave you seen the sun lately? No, no, don't look right at it with your eyes.... more
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A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US space agency announced.
It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there.
Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn.
The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth.
Though there have been hints in the past that planets circling double stars might exist, scientists say this is the first confirmation.
'Stunning'
It means when the day ends on Kepler-16b, there is a double sunset, they say.
Kepler-16b's two suns are smaller than ours - at 69% and 20% of the mass of our sun - making the surface temperature an estimated -100 to -150F (-73 to -101C).
The planet orbits its two suns every 229 days at a distance of 65m miles (104m km) - about the same solar orbit as Venus.
The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, is designed to scour our section of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.
"This is really a stunning measurement by Kepler," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science, a co-author of the study.
"The real exciting thing is there's a planet sitting out there orbiting around these two stars."
Kepler finds stars whose light is regularly dimmed, which means there is an orbited planet between the star and the telescope.
Nasa's scientists saw additional dips in the light in both stars at alternating but regular times, confirming the dual orbit of the planet.
The finding was reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been... more
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pdy
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added this
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5 months ago
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Dark mode plasma phenomena exist on the Sun.
The image at the top of the page is the most detailed ever taken of the Sun's chromosphere. The smallest features are 130 kilometers in size. Each spicule is about 480 kilometers in diameter, with a length of 3200 kilometers. The largest measure as much as 8000 kilometers long. Although the light and dark regions are colorful, the colors were added in processing.
In the electric Sun hypothesis, the Sun is a glowing anode, or positively charged "electrode." The cathode is an invisible "virtual cathode," called the heliosphere. The heliosphere is at the farthest limit of the Sun's coronal discharge, billions of kilometers from its surface, where a "double layer" isolates the Sun's plasma cell from the galactic plasma that surrounds it. Galactic plasma is otherwise called the Interstellar Medium (ISM).
Electric forces occurring within the double charge layer above the Sun’s surface are responsible for the incredibly active plasma phenomena that we see. Since Electric Universe theory assumes that celestial bodies interact through conductive plasma and are connected by circuits, the Sun is also assumed to be electrically connected with the galaxy. The Sun can be thought of as an electrically charged object seeking equilibrium with its environment. However, it is not stable. The charges flowing into and out of the Sun can sometimes increase to the point where it releases plasma discharges called solar flares.
Conventional scientists see solar flares, or coronal mass ejections (CME), taking place when magnetic loops "reconnect" with each other, causing a short circuit. The so-called "magnetic energy" is said to accelerate gases into space. Although "magnetic reconnection" is a poorly constructed theory, it is the only explanation offered by heliophysicists.
The "solar wind" is a dark mode emission radiating from the Sun at approximately 700 kilometers per second. In a Universe governed by gravity, the Sun's heat and radiation pressure cannot explain how the charged particles that make up the solar wind accelerate past Venus, Earth and the rest of the planets. Prior to the discovery, no one expected such acceleration.
In an Electric Universe, there is an obvious explanation: electric fields in space. Since coherent charges flow through the Solar System, then it seems reasonable to conclude that the dark mode solar plasma is affected by the electrodynamic fields of the Sun and its planetary family.
Solar flares could be tremendous lightning bursts in that case, pushing plasma to near relativistic speeds. If the circuit that connects the Sun with the Milky Way extends for hundreds of thousands of light-years, massive amounts of electrical energy might be contained in such magnetically confined “transmission lines” feeding the solar anode.
According to the Electric Sun theory, flares, the hot corona, and all other solar phenomena result from changes in the electrical input from our galaxy. Birkeland current filaments slowly rotate past the Solar System, supplying more or less power to the Sun as they go. Arc mode, glow mode, and dark mode discharges are all influenced by those flowing currents of electric charge.
Stephen SmithDark mode plasma phenomena exist on the Sun.
The image at the top of the page is... more
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WARNING: You will get teary-eyed. They freaking hugged!
It's good news all round then in Germany, where a group of lab chimps were allowed outdoors for the very first time. As you can see from the video, they're rather pleased.
These poor creatures are seeing sunlight for the first time ever in their lives. Look at them hug with joy and smile with sheer happiness. So sad and so happy.WARNING: You will get teary-eyed. They freaking hugged!
It's good news all... more
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Results from an experiment built to study how clouds form suggests that our knowledge of this subject may need to be revised, Nature journal reports.
Tiny particles (aerosols) form the basis of the "seeds" from which clouds grow.
The aim of the study is to create a better understanding of how clouds form and in particular the role of cosmic rays. Dr Kirkby said that the work will lead to better computer models of how the Earth's climate is influenced by clouds.
more at link...
This is old news. Dr. Henrik Svensmark has already broke it down in his free documentary, The Cloud Mystery + the website www.thecloudmystery.com. I posted it over a year ago and only has 64 views, but I'll post it again in the comments below. The eco-commie propagandists on this site are chumps. They're not scientific or intellectual and now the BBC has to admit that they know nothing about the climate and how the Sun, cosmic rays and clouds affect it.
The most pathetic thing about the article is the article link on the right column entitled, "'No Sun Link' to Climate Change" as if the Sun doesn't affect climate or temperature. Are you f*cking kidding me?Results from an experiment built to study how clouds form suggests that our knowledge... more
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Iran and Syria have enjoyed a close strategic alliance for decades, founded on their mutual antipathy towards the West. In return for Iranian military support, Syria has supported Tehran's attempts to develop the Islamic fundamentalist Hizbollah militia into a major political force in neighbouring Lebanon.Iran and Syria have enjoyed a close strategic alliance for decades, founded on their... more
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Washington DC -- Pres. Barack Obama says he has figured out what is causing the US economic slowdown, and that he knows how to cure the economy's ills. But a variety of experts disagree.
"Wall Street is not getting its minimum daily requirement of vitamin D," Obama told a packed press conference conducted earlier today outside the Oval Office. "How else would you explain the market's crazy roller coaster ride?"Washington DC -- Pres. Barack Obama says he has figured out what is causing the US... more
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An extremely powerful solar flare, the largest in over four years, rocked the sun early Tuesday (Aug. 9), but is unlikely to wreak any serious havoc here on Earth, scientists say.
"It was a big flare," said Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center. "We lucked out because the site of the eruption at the sun was not facing the Earth, so we will probably feel no ill effects."
Today's solar flare began at 3:48 a.m. EDT (0748 GMT), and was rated a class X6.9 on the three-class scale scientists use to measure the strength of solar flares. The strongest type of solar eruption is class X, while class C represents the weakest and class M flares are medium-strength events.
The flare is the largest one yet in the sun's current cycle, which began in 2008 and is expected to last until around 2020. Solar activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year sun weather cycle, with the star currently heading toward a solar maximum in 2013.
"This flare had a GOES X-ray magnitude of X6.9, meaning it was more than 3 times larger than the previous largest flare of this solar cycle - the X2.2 that occurred on Feb 15, 2011," scientists with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space observatory that monitors the sun, wrote in an update.
Before the Feb. 15 storm, the largest recent solar flare occurred in December 2006, when an X9-class solar storm erupted from the sun.
more at link...
Don't worry, Al Gore says that the Sun is "bullshit" and doesn't affect Earth's climate.An extremely powerful solar flare, the largest in over four years, rocked the sun... more
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Photovoltaic cells that convert heat, not sunlight, to electricity may turn out to be the solution for capturing all the energy we waste through heat.
Photovoltaic cells are best known for turning sunlight into electrical power--and they're big business. But did you know that there's a type of PV cell that eats heat instead of light to make power? It could replace the Li-ion battery in your cell phone, and it may also be used to scavenge waste heat from almost anything that normally dumps it into the environment, from your TV's electronics to your car's engine (even an electrical one).
Thermal PV tech has been around ages, and works the same way as the solar variation: Incoming radiation excites the atoms in its semiconductor structure, which then push electrons out--generating current. And much as is the case for solar PV cells, the advances in the tech have all been about improving their efficiency. Scientists at MIT have recently honed this tech, pushing the efficiency up so far that thermal PV cells are now a viable alternative to all sorts of other tech. MIT's breakthrough was to add a layer of tungsten to the front of a PV cell, with a surface that's been etched on a nanoscopic scale so that when heated it emits infrared light (heat) at wavelengths precisely tuned to the best efficiency of the PV cell behind it.
Right now, MIT is building the tech into tiny silicon micro-reactors. These are tiny furnaces that burn butane to generate heat, and then extract the heat to produce electricity. If that sounds convoluted, then this will impress you: The microreactors are small enough to replace the button cell Li-ion batteries you find in devices like watches, and convert the chemical ingredients that make them tick with three times better efficiency than Li-ion can match. Better yet, when they run out of fuel you simply snap in an extra cartridge of butane to recharge them.
But because MIT's system is so very efficient, and is based on a material that's not too rare or expensive, it could be used to build fuel-less heat-scavenging units that are stuck inside all sorts of devices to recover the wasted heat energy that nearly every machine we've ever made kicks out (thanks to the lovely laws of physics). How about the hot back of your TV? Or the hot chassis of the electric motor in your Nissan Leaf? Let's get fanciful and imagine it would be possible to claw back a few milliwatts of energy from the hot shower water you simply let run down the drain.
More at the linkPhotovoltaic cells that convert heat, not sunlight, to electricity may turn out to be... more
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Get ready for the next big bombshell in the man-made warming debate. The world’s most sophisticated particle study laboratory—CERN in Geneva—will soon announce that more cosmic rays do, indeed, create more clouds in earth’s atmosphere. More cosmic rays mean a cooler planet. Thus, the solar source of the earth’s long, moderate 1,500-year climate cycle will finally be explained.
Cosmic rays and solar winds are interesting phenomena—but they are vastly more relevant when an undocumented theory is threatening to quadruple society’s energy costs. The IPCC wants $10 gasoline, and “soaring” electric bills to reduce earth’s temperatures by an amount too tiny to measure with most thermometers.
In 2007, when Fred Singer and I published Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years, we weren’t terribly concerned with cosmic rays. We knew the natural, moderate warming/cooling cycle was real, from the evidence in ice cores, seabed sediments, fossil pollen and cave stalagmites. The cycle was the big factor that belied the man-made warming hysteria of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
When Willi Dansgaard and Hans Oeschger discovered the 1,500 year cycle in the Greenland ice cores in 1984, they knew immediately that it was solar-powered. They’d seen exactly the same cycle in the carbon 14 molecules in trees, and in the beryllium 10 molecules in ice cores. Both sets of molecules are formed when cosmic rays strike our atmosphere. The cycle had produced a whole series of dramatic, abrupt Medieval-Warming-to-Little-Ice-Age climate changes.
The IPCC, for its part, announced that the sun could not be the forcing factor in any major climate change because the solar irradiation was too small. IPCC did not, however, add up the other solar variations that could amplify the solar irradiation. Nor had the IPCC programmed its famed computer models with the knowledge of the Medieval Warming (950–1200 AD), the Roman Warming (200 BC–600 AD), or the big Holocene Warmings centered on 6,000 and 8,000 BC.
The IPCC apparently wanted to dismiss the sun as a climate factor—to leave room for a CO2 factor that has only a 22 percent correlation with our past thermometer record. Correlation is not causation—but the lack of CO2 correlation is deadly to the IPCC theory.
Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute added the next chapter in the climate cycle story, just before our book was published. His cloud chamber experiment showed natural cosmic rays quickly created vast numbers of tiny “cloud seeds” when our mix of atmospheric gases was bombarded with ultra-violet light. Since clouds often cover 30 percent of the earth’s surface, a moderate change in cloud cover clearly could explain the warming/cooling cycle.
Svensmark noted the gigantic “solar wind” that expands when the sun is active—and thus blocks many of the cosmic rays that would otherwise hit the earth’s atmosphere. When the sun weakens, the solar wind shrinks. Recently, the U.S. Solar Observatory reported a very long period of “quiet sun” and predicted 30 years of cooling.
Last year, Denmark’s University of Aarhus did another experiment with a particle accelerator that fully confirmed the Svensmark hypothesis: cosmic rays help to make more clouds and thus could cool the earth.
The CERN experiment is supposed to be the big test of the Svensmark theory. It’s a tipoff, then, that CERN’s boss, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, has just told the German magazine Die Welt that he has forbidden his researchers to “interpret” the forthcoming test results. In other words, the CERN report will be a stark “just the facts” listing of the findings. Those findings must support Svensmark, or Heuer would never have issued such a stifling order on a major experiment.
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Henrik Svensmark did the documentary, The Cloud Mystery, I watched it to actually do research on climate change and learn about science. It debunks AGW Global Warming, just like Galileo debunked the geocentric. I never knew how hard it was to convince people that the Sun actually affected temperatures on Earth!Get ready for the next big bombshell in the man-made warming debate. The world’s... more
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The death of a comet that plunged into the sun was
captured on camera this month for the first time
in history, scientists say.
The comet met its fiery demise on July 6 when it zoomed
in from behind the sun and melted into oblivion as it crashed
into the star. It was NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO),
a satellite orbiting Earth that studies the sun, which witnessed
the comet's death-blow.
One of the SDO spacecraft's high-definition imagers
"actually spotted a sun-grazing comet as it disintegrated over
about a 15 minute period (July 6, 2011), something never observed
before," SDO officials said. [See the observatory's image of the
comet death]
kb http://www.nasa.govThe death of a comet that plunged into the sun was
captured on camera this month for... more
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“Every little piece of new knowledge is used by space agencies around the world to design new instrumentation to probe the unknown and unexplained. For example, who would have thought that the location of where coronal holes are on the Sun would be important for space weather effects?”
Asking questions in order to find answers and, of course, create a new path for new questions: This is the job of Bruce Tsurutani, a space weather scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Tsurutani is in charge for the JPL to monitor solar activity and reveal the effects of wind and sun flares on Earth. Professor Tsurutani, awarded in 2009 the John A. Fleming Medal, and has spent much of his 40-year career on understanding the Sun-Earth connection and interplanetary physics.
He is the lead author of the paper “The solar and interplanetary causes of the recent minimum in geomagnetic activity,” co-authored by professors Walter Gonzalez and Ezequiel Echer.
In an exclusive interview interview, Professor Tsurutani describes what the solar minimum means for the planet and the solar system, how a magnetic storm can destroy or damage the human devices, and what are the studies run by NASA and U.S. governmental agencies in order to predict possible scenarios and the subsequent remedies.
Doctor Tsurutani, as the lead author of the paper “The solar and interplanetary causes of the recent minimum in geomagnetic activity,” can you explain what is the main or key result of your research?
The efforts of my two Brazilian colleagues, Profs. Echer and Gonzalez, and myself is to understand all facets of how the sun affects us here on Earth. We have previously studied two other phases of the 11 year solar (sunspot) cycle: solar maximum and the declining phase. Now we have starting to study the solar minimum phase.
Our main result was to explain how this record low geomagnetic activity at Earth occurred. We found that the coronal holes were small and placed at midlatitude locations on the sun and there were extremely low solar magnetic fields. The former is a poor location for solar wind impingement on the Earth (which is in the ecliptic plane) to occur. All of this was made possible by a very nice paper on coronal hole evolution written by G. de Toma. This stimulated our thinking.
What is the correlation between the solar wind and the 'solar minimum'?
During solar minimum (late 2008) the average solar wind speed detected at Earth was still high. Six months to a year later, the average speeds were much lower. So there was a delay of the solar wind speed decrease from solar minimum. However the speed of the solar wind coming from coronal holes on the sun did not change. It was just the location of the coronal holes that did. Does this happen every solar cycle? Probably so. But more research is needed to determine whether this hypothesis is correct or not. What in the interior of the Sun makes these coronal holes appear at middle latitudes? At this time we do not know.
What is the 'solar minimum' impact on our daily life and the impact on our space devices, like satellites?
Actually we now know that during solar minimum the environment is quite benign. There are no (or at least very few) solar flares or enhancements of the Van Allen radiation belts that could impact satellites. This would be a good time for space travel! There should not be any impacts to our daily lives (except beautiful auroras will be hard to find!).
How can solar wind affect the solar system mechanics?
The pressure from the solar wind is quite weak and has little effect on the solar system as it is today. However the distant past may be a different story.
The magnetic interactions are vital in our understanding of the universe; how does your research as a space weather specialist help to improve that knowledge?
Yes, space weather scientists now know that magnetic interactions is the most important mechanism for solar flares on the sun as well as energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere. In 1859, R. Carrington made the first well-documented observation of a solar flare. He also made reference to a magnetic storm at Earth. From this, Profs. G. Lakhina and S. Alex of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Prof. Gonzalez and I studied the solar and interplanetary causes of this storm — by far the largest ever recorded at Earth. We have never seen anything close to this intensity in our lifetimes. We did this as part of our solar maximum phase study. Magnetic interactions were presumed to take place both at the sun and at Earth.
Luckily, because this was such a huge event, scientists at the time took note and wrote papers on the fires set, electrical shocks that happened, and the brilliant auroral displays that occurred at Earth. This old information were used in our study. In 1859 the world was in a state of low technology in comparison to today. The “high tech” device at the time was the telegraph. NASA together with other U.S. governmental agencies are presently studying what would happen if a magnetic storm of Carrington intensity happened again today? Would power grids go out? Could satellites come down? Would the radiation from the solar flare and the Van Allen belts damage spaceborne electronics? The U.S. plans to be prepared in case something of this magnitude happens again.
Magnetic interactions are also important for laboratory plasma physics and astrophysics as well. Space weather scientists meet with plasma fusion physicists and astrophysicists on a regular basis to compare ideas and observations.
Have results of recent scientific investigations led to improvements that can be used in the near future on solar facilities?
Definitely. Every little piece of new knowledge is used by space agencies around the world to design new instrumentation to probe the unknown/unexplained. For example, who would have thought that the location of where coronal holes are on the Sun would be important for space weather effects? Now that it is known that this is important for geomagnetic activity at Earth, scientists will attempt to explain this.
What would happen if coronal holes disappeared altogether? Or the solar magnetic field became even weaker? Do we know enough about the interior of the Sun to be able to predict when this could happen, and for how long? This is the goal for all of us working in the field.“Every little piece of new knowledge is used by space agencies around the world... more
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Mass awakening of volcanoes in the recent years has made scientists wreck their brains over the possible causes of such increased activity. Many geophysicists believe that such activity may increase because of the interaction of the Earth with other celestial bodies, such as the Sun or the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter.
Even the skeptics do not doubt that our planet is going through a peak of volcanic activity. Indeed, for the second consecutive year, these fire-breathing monsters are being felt in different regions of the planet. Even seemingly forever dormant volcanoes are coming to life. In addition, scientists expect the emergence of new volcanoes in places where they did not exist before.
The peak of volcanic activity also coincided with the activation of other processes in Earth's crust that resulted in the succession of powerful earthquakes. Although they happened in places with the increased seismic activity, this is not very comforting. Since volcanoes and earthquakes are usually associated with one another, it becomes clear that something is happening to the planet.
more at link...
Yes, something is happening to the planet and sorry eco-commies...it's not CO2. The man-made global warming theory due to CO2 emissions is a quack, Ponzi-scheme cooked up by the bankers to swindle the people and control energy markets. Only by acknowledging the fraud, can humanity move towards becoming better stewards of the planet.Mass awakening of volcanoes in the recent years has made scientists wreck their brains... more
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Us Brits are obsessed with our weather, and as the UK baked at the start of the week with uncharacteristically hot weather and bright sun thanks to the influx of wam air from Spain's beaches, talk inevitably turned to how long it'll last.
Sadly, not long.
Forecasters warned that thunder and rain showers will bring the sunny spell to a halt, with the earliest storms reaching the UK on Monday evening.
The south west already saw rain on Monday, with thunderstorms in south east England and East Anglia overnight.
With temperatures hitting 31C in central London, many have been basking in the sun over the weekend and at the start of the week. Though prolonged sunny spells are still expected this week, they'll be interupted by occassional showers.
According to Sky's weather presenter Isobel Lang:
"High pressure will build in from the southwest across Britain and Ireland during the remainder of the week with temperatures returning to normal.
"Southeast and East Anglia will be last to freshen up but will feel more comfortable from Tuesday night onwards as the humid air eases away.
"The fine weather is set to last into the weekend for eastern parts but the west will probably turn wet, and there's a more unsettled trend for all into the following week."Us Brits are obsessed with our weather, and as the UK baked at the start of the week... more
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richjm
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added this
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8 months ago
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Jun 22, 2011
The scale and significance of solar electromagnetic disturbances is being reevaluated.
“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”
--- Marshall McLuhan
According to a recent press release, an immense eruption on the Sun encompassed almost an entire hemisphere. The extraordinary plasma discharge prompted this response from Karel Schrijver of Lockheed Martin's Solar and Astrophysics Lab in Palo Alto, California: "The August 1st event really opened our eyes. We see that solar storms can be global events, playing out on scales we scarcely imagined before."
The massive coronal mass ejection (CME) demonstrated that solar explosions are interconnected by magnetic fields reaching out for thousands of miles. The Great Eruption (as it was called) was composed of several smaller components: solar flares, filaments, and CMEs that spanned 180 degrees of solar longitude and lasted for 28 hours.
CMEs typically spew plasma in the billions of tons throughout the Solar System. A signature of CME ejections is an increase in auroral brightness and frequency on Earth. The ejections are composed of charged particles, and are attracted to and follow Earth's polar magnetic cusps. A few CMEs have been observed to leave the Sun with unexpected acceleration: velocities more than 70,000 kilometers per second have been clocked.
The fact that events on the Sun should be influenced by one another does not seem surprising when the Electric Star model is considered. Magnetic fields have been detected in galaxies, meaning that electric currents must flow through them in circuits. There is no other way to create a magnetic field other than the movement of electric current in a conductive medium.
Magnetic forces constrict currents into filaments, which twist around each other and "pinch" galactic plasma into balls, pulling matter together until internal pressure balances the so-called "electromagnetic z-pinch" pressure. This pinch effect is far more powerful than gravity, and can gather matter from hundreds of light-years away, forming stars like beads along the galactic filaments.
The surface of a star like the Sun generates multiple loop structures that rise up from its surface and penetrate its plasma sheath, or double layer region of the Sun, where most of its electrical energy is contained. When the current flowing into the Sun's plasma sheath increases beyond a certain point it can trigger a sudden release of energy, otherwise known as a CME.
As Electric Universe advocate Don Scott makes clear, powerful looping electric currents generate secondary toroidal magnetic fields. If the current grows too strong, the plasma double layer is destroyed. That event interrupts the current flow and the stored electromagnetic energy is blasted into space.
It is not surprising to Electric Universe proponents that conditions on the Sun are governed by interconnected magnetic fields, and, by extension, electric currents.
Stephen SmithJun 22, 2011
The scale and significance of solar electromagnetic disturbances is... more
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Jun 24, 2011
Electric currents create magnetic fields in the Sun.
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Asking this question always gets a chuckle from a group of kids who haven’t been asked that before. For adults, it confirms their conviction that unanswerable questions must be laughably ignored. For a farmer who gets into the egg business by purchasing a group of laying hens the answer is easy. “My chickens came first; that’s how I got my eggs.”
Solar astrophysicists who try to explain what causes coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have a similar conundrum: “Which came first, the change in electric current, or the change in the solar magnetic field?” Until the present day there has been no mention of electric currents in space by solar astronomers. There has been no acknowledgement whatever that electric current is needed to create magnetic fields or that it even exists.
In 1908 Kristian Birkeland suggested that electrical flows from the Sun caused the auroral displays that we see. Astronomers such as Sidney Chapman ridiculed him. When it came to descriptions of solar coronal mass ejections and similar phenomena, all we have heard about for decades was that magnetic fields move around and twist – their “magnetic lines of force” come together, touch, and then fly apart carrying matter with them. This is called “Magnetic Reconnection.” Solar astronomers never mention electric currents. We are to believe that magnetic fields do it all by themselves, without help.
Recently things seem to have changed. A new paper entitled “A Current Filamentation Mechanism for Breaking Magnetic Field Lines During Reconnection” (9 June 2011 Vol. 474 Nature p. 187) mentions electric currents – but as an effect rather than a cause of magnetic field movements. The authors performed particle-in-cell simulations, not real laboratory experiments. Real lab experiments would have required them to set up electric currents to create the magnetic fields they wanted to measure. So they reported results of their computer simulations as experimental fact.
Electrical engineers and classical physicists have known for decades that only movement (flow) of electric charges causes magnetic fields. Electric current is the only cause of magnetic fields. Varying the strength and direction of those currents will move the magnetic fields around and vary their strength. Shutting off the causal electric current will cause magnetically stored energy to be released.
In the abstract of the paper mentioned above the authors state, “...we find that when the current layers that form during magnetic reconnection become too intense, they disintegrate and spread into a complex web of filaments that causes the rate of reconnection to increase abruptly.”
They have it backwards. They are oblivious to the fact that variations in the direction and strength of the causal electric currents are what produce the observed changes in the magnetic fields. Do they think that magnetic fields posses volition? Do magnetic fields just “take it into their heads” to move around and “reconnect”? What prompts their movement in the first place? What is the primal cause of the phenomenon they observe and call “magnetic reconnection”?
They report in this paper that changes in magnetic fields produce electric current filaments. It is the electric filaments that produce the magnetic fields and cause their movements. This paper offers us the first glimmer of hope that these ideas may be awakening in an embryonic state in the minds of solar astrophysicists.
At this point, they still have their eggs before their chickens. Maybe someday they will realize that. And get it straight.
Donald Scott
Author of The Electric Sky
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Jun 24, 2011
Electric currents create magnetic fields in the Sun.
“Which... more
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The moon will rise in Earth's shadow this evening in a rare lunar eclipse that could turn the moon a deep shade of red.
Skywatchers anticipate spectacular lunar eclipse tonight and if there are clear skies the celestial spectacle will be visible across the UK, with the exception of northern Scotland, as soon as the moon rises after sunset.
Moonrise time varies with location, but for observers in London, the show will begin at 9.13pm. Further north, in Glasgow, moonrise begins at 9.58pm.
Source: The GuardianThe moon will rise in Earth's shadow this evening in a rare lunar eclipse that... more
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