"All Quiet Alert" Issued For the Sun 463
radioweather writes "The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, and maybe it is, but the sun is extremely quiet right now, so much in fact that the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium issued an unusual 'All quiet alert' on October 5th. Since then the sunspot number has remained at zero — solar cycle 24 has not yet started. There are signs that the sun's activity is slowing. The solar wind has been decreasing in speed, and this is yet another indicator of a slowing in the sun's magnetic dynamo. There is talk of an extended solar minimum occurring. There are a number of theories and a couple of dozen predictions about the intensity solar cycle 24 which has yet to start. One paper by Penn & Livingstonin in 2006 concludes: 'If [trends] continue to decrease at the current rate then the number of sunspots in the next solar cycle (cycle 24) would be reduced by roughly half, and there would be very few sunspots visible on the disk during cycle 25.' We'll know more in about six months what the sun decides to do for cycle 24."
no sunspots huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Simple (Score:4, Funny)
Quick! Alert the scientific community! (Score:5, Funny)
We must take immediate and drastic steps to fight Global Darkening!
Maybe we can get that Kim Stanley Robinson person to write a book? 70 Days of Night?
Sum it up for me (Score:4, Funny)
Layman's terms? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quick! Alert the scientific community! (Score:5, Funny)
ZOMGS! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:no sunspots huh? (Score:2, Funny)
At least no one is welcoming their un-sunspotted overlords...
Re:Layman's terms? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Holy crap goreman! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Subby sounds like an oxymoron (Score:3, Funny)
Given that the Sun is itself a large ball of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace in which hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees, and on the surface of which flares and eruptions with the energy of millions of times the entire nuclear arsenal of the planet Earth go off more or less daily, I'd say it's a pretty damn noisy place all the time.
Re:Simple (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Layman's terms? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quick! Alert the scientific community! (Score:2, Funny)
Now everybody listen carefully: GTFO my internet.
Re:That's the Maunder Minimum (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sunspot numbers (Score:5, Funny)
The other side would be dead.
Re:So in other words.. (Score:1, Funny)
If you don't know, you probably are.
Re:Oh really? (Score:5, Funny)
try to keep on its good side (Score:5, Funny)
Please stop anthromorphising astonomical bodies. It just makes them angry.
Re:So in other words.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Quick! Alert the scientific community! (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, but we have a consensus of scientists to prove that the sun has NO effect on the Earths temperature. If the sun went cold overnight, the Earth would still be heating up due to global warming. The ONLY thing that affecting the Earths temperature is human activity. You need to keep up with Algore's speeches.
Re:That's the Maunder Minimum (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We're all gonna die... (Score:2, Funny)
Cheeseballs.
Fucking Cheeseballs.
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Maybe God's dog peed on it? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That's the Maunder Minimum (Score:5, Funny)
This message brought to you by the Society for the Brutal Abuse of Misleading Statistics.
Re:Layman's terms? (Score:3, Funny)
> I'm just a software geek. I know nothing of this "sun" you speak of.
It's another name for the NYF, i.e., the Nasty Yellow Face that appears periodically in the Really Big Room. It's also called the "Burning Face", the "Great Yellow Disc", "Sol", "Masaka", or "Daystar".
In some ways it's a very powerful monster, but in practice it's not a very important one, because there's no need to ever defeat it (if that's even possible). Mostly you can just avoid it, by staying out of the RBR or by sneaking through while the NYF is absent/sleeping. If you do enter the RBR during a time when the Nasty Yellow Face is awake and present, it has various negative effects, although none are immediately fatal. You can't really do anything to it, because it will never approach to within melee range, and it's not vulnerable to arrows. Given enough time it will scorch your skin with its gaze attack, but the effect accrues slowly enough that you can easily get away before the burning becomes unbearable (as long as you are aware of the issue and don't do something completely idiotic, like go to sleep under its gaze or wander so far out into the RBR that you get lost in it). The greater danger is to your eyes, which can be quickly blinded by the Face's intense burning gaze attack, so you should always use eye protection, and even then don't look directly at the NYF. (In this respect it is similar to anything else with a dangerous gaze attack, e.g., a gorgon. Keeping your face aimed down toward the floor is a standard tactic.) The NYF has never been known to follow anyone out of the RBR. Frankly I don't think it would even fit through the doors to most other rooms. It *will* use its gaze attack through a door or window into an adjascent room, but as long as you're at least two or three rooms away from the RBR you should generally not have to worry about the NYF at all.
HTH.HAND.
Re:That's the Maunder Minimum (Score:1, Funny)
Maybe the Sun is confused... (Score:4, Funny)
A: 42!
It cannot be a coincidence that this magical number popped up here as well. The Sun needs some time to find itself before it decides what to do for the next quart^H^H^H^H^H solar cycle.
Re:Quick! Alert the scientific community! (Score:3, Funny)
This is bogus (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sunspots - solar wind - mag shield - less cloud (Score:3, Funny)
And that could be a problem.