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Science

Solar Minimum Coming Sooner Than Expected 79

Posted by timothy from the just-in-time-for-solar-tea dept.
bigjocker writes "According to this NASA story: "Something strange happened on the sun last week: all the sunspots vanished. This is a sign, say forecasters, that solar minimum is coming sooner than expected.""
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Solar Minimum Coming Sooner Than Expected More

Solar Minimum Coming Sooner Than Expected

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  • Obligatory... (Score:2, Funny)

    by kagaku ( 774787 )
    We're all gonna die!!

    • Re:Obligatory... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Worse then that, it is going to mess up our TV reception.

  • Relax (Score:3, Informative)

    by Charvak ( 97898 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @06:30PM (#10560008)
    It happens every 11 or so years. Nothing to panic

    • Re:Relax (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vaevictis666 ( 680137 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @06:32PM (#10560021)
      It's noteworthy since (according to wikipedia) the last Solar Maximum was in 2001, so on an 11 year cycle, it shouldn't be due for another 2 1/2 years or so.

    • Simple Explanation (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It happens every 11 or so years. Nothing to panic

      It's the maid's job to clean up all those sunspots, but it takes 11 years or so to get enough windex, 'cause the sun is really big. There was a surplus this year, so she came in early.

      Mystery solved.

      --
      AC

    • Re:Relax (Score:5, Informative)

      by Aglassis ( 10161 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @07:27PM (#10560400)
      The current theory (at least how I get it) is that sunspots are related to the magnetic field of the Sun. We start by assuming that the magnetic field of the sun starts a cycle by resembling a bar magnet (where a magnetic field line goes directly from the geographic south pole to the geographic north pole without curving). Due to the faster rotation of the Sun at the equator than at the poles (observed), the magnetic field slowly becomes twisted around the Sun (in a helix). Any field lines that resist the twisting can unwind causing them to erupt from the surface forming a sunspot pair (one where it exited and one where it returned). It is theorized that the greater magnetic flux at these points causes a reduction in convective heat transfer to the surface resulting in a dimming of the light at these spots. Eventually due to the interaction of the erupted magnetic field lines with the non-erupted magnetic field lines, the sunspots are forced towards the poles. Once enough sunspots are at the poles and their fields are stronger than the non-erupted fields, the field of the sun can flip, anhililating all the sunspots and returning the Sun to a normal bar magnet orientation (except with the opposite polarity). This is observed to take about 11 years.

      It seems that if all the sunspots have disappeared, this should mean that the magnetic field has reversed early.
      • What puzzles me about this beautiful and concise explanation is that there is no such thing as a field line: they are mere abstractions. And yet your description (which is in line what physicists generally tell us) talks as if they were material objects under tension, with elasticity and so on.
        Naturally this metaphor must be justifiable by reference to the underlying electromagnetic theory, but is there any concise justification of this anywhere?
        • Magnetic field lines are an exceptional abstraction. Since the density of magnetic field lines (say taking a box around some part in your diagram) matches the density of the magnetic field, you can say that a box with some density of field lines at point A in your diagram compared to a point B has the the ratio of the density of field lines at A divided by the density of field lines at B multiplied by the field strength at B (assuming we know the field strength at B). Field lines are also used in the desc
    • Unless this is the start of another Maunder minimum or Younger Dryas! --Of course we have secret ballots in Georgia we use only Dibold machines. You never really know who you voted for.

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by escher ( 3402 ) * <the.mind.walrus@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday October 18, 2004 @06:30PM (#10560011) Journal
    I, for one, welcome our new...

    Oh hell. I can't. I just can't do it.
  • When it has lost all the ugly spots [nasa.gov], why is the sun said to be hitting minimum!?! The girl next to our door with all those pimples'd say it should be called maximum.

    Whatever might it be called, I hope the temperatures get down a little so I can get outside in the day (that being awake in the day is an extremely difficult thing is a different matter though)

    • Re:Minimum!?! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sun spots are a result of the sun spinning it's magnetic field into knots. Other results of this are coronal mass ejections, which can then potentially smash into the earth and present a significant hazzard to communications, satellites, and even power distribution and generation. The peak of this unpleasent activitiy is the solar maximum, while the minimum is just that.

      See, I can whore karma too. And I would think a guy who has an X-ray observatory named after him would try to be a little more up on th

  • Expanded info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Goyuix ( 698012 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @06:50PM (#10560175) Homepage
    After a bit of googling and actually reading the articles (gasp!) - here is some info that I found rather interesting:

    The sun cycle is about 11 years. The length isn't fixed, it has varied between 9 and 14 years.

    The next minimum was expected in late 2006, so this is coming about a year early.

    Scientists don't understand the solar year, or what really causes it - so this could be a fluke or something else. So far it is just an interesting observation.

    The linked article is good, but the Wiki link needs some help. Any solar physicists out there that want to contribute?
    • Total nitpick, but it's about 2 years early.

    • Re:Expanded info (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )
      I wonder if the early minimum is related at all to the amazing storm activity of last fall. Perhaps the Sun spent all it had then?

    • Re:Expanded info (Score:3, Interesting)

      by synaptic ( 4599 )
      It is probably correlated to the orbit of Jupiter which is 11.86 earth years and the other planets to a lesser degree.

      I would presume that like our moon creates tidal forces on our oceans, the planets create tidal forces on the sun's plasma and can stretch and tug on the sun and reduce the gravitational compression that fuses the fuel.

      If one were to analyze the location of the planets at each solar maximum and minimum, you might find the events that cause the variance in solar periods.

      But that's just an
      • "correlated to the orbit of Jupiter which is 11.86 earth years" No. There is no correlation (and I have looked).

      • Re:Expanded info (Score:5, Informative)

        by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @11:09PM (#10561637) Homepage
        The tidal force on the Sun due to Jupiter should be down by around a factor of 100,000 from that of the Moon on the Earth, I figure. And it's difficult to see how tides would affect the field. They create a bulge, they shouldn't tangle up field lines. And there is no reason that I can figure that would explain why it's a 22-year cycle, rather than an 11-year. (We see a maxiumum is solar activity every 11 years, but the Sun's field returns to the same orientation (north or south) every 22 years.) So while I'd say you've got a good thought, it doesn't look like it would pan out.

        What seems to be happening is that the convection and rotation that generates the field also tangles it all up. Eventually, it's so messed up that it starts to reconnect and straighten itself out, getting simpler and weaker. And the cycle starts again, but in the opposite direction.

        Incidentally, Earth seems to do the same thing, just much more slowly. Look for "magnetic reversals" with Google.
        • They create a bulge, they shouldn't tangle up field lines.

          But wouldn't the buldging material create different fluid effects, which could magnetohydrodynamically alter the Sun's field?

          .
          -shpoffo

          • Re:Expanded info (Score:4, Informative)

            by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 ) on Tuesday October 19, 2004 @01:56PM (#10567355) Homepage
            It's difficult to see how; the topology hasn't changed. If the bulge were really severe, I could imagine it altering the way convection works, but there's no way that it is.

            Oh, I should have noted that the Sun rotates ever 30 days or so. The buldge moves across the Sun on that timescale, so Jupiter's orbital period is nearly irrelevent. (There's a slight effect from eccentricity of the orbit, but Jupiter's orbit is pretty circular.)
            • What does severity of the buldge have to do with topology? If the bulge was extending from the sun's mean surface to Mercury the toplogy would still be the same, wouldn't it?

              So are you saying that hte buldge is not signficant enough to warrant a difference in fluid dynamical motion?

              (Incidentally, I'd doubt that would be realistic, as it seems that anything with as much energy as the sun would allow for even small changes to catalyze larger effects.)

              .
              -shpoffo
              • The topology of the Sun wouldn't change with any size bulge. However, if the buldge were really severe, it would affect the convection's behavior. *That* would affect the field topology. But moving the equator out a bit wouldn't much change how the field lines get tangled, so it shouldn't affect things much.
                • What is different about what you said from the original post I questioned? You are essentially saying that any such bulges *probably* wouldn't affect things much, which as i said doesn't seem reasonable considering the amount of energy in the Sun. What I'm hoping to do is evoke someone to present an actual model.

                  .
                  -shpoffo
                  • How does the energy in the Sun matter? What matters is how the field lines are tangled up. There is nothing that I can see that would indicate that a bulge would affect that at all, it would just draw out the radial region over which things are occuring a bit. The motions are the same, though. So no significant change seems expected.

                    If your intuition says otherwise, go ahead and make the models. It's every bit as much up to your to prove your intuition as it is up to me to prove mine. (More, in as muc
    • Scientists don't understand the solar year, or what really causes it - so this could be a fluke or something else. So far it is just an interesting observation.

      The answer is obvious, IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!!!

      :-)
  • If this is so normal then why haven't I heard of it. I swear they are covering up a massive catastrophe by just inventing science and making it part of history like some sort of science-meets-1984 thing.

    I'm off to get my insulated thermal tinfoil hat to see me through this.

  • So what? (Score:3, Informative)

    by JVert ( 578547 ) <corganbilly@hotmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday October 18, 2004 @07:03PM (#10560264) Journal
    No, really, what.
    I think heavy solar flares help radio wave transmissions, gives all the HAM operators a stiff pole. Does this lack of flares make signals worse? I dont see anything about the natural effects of this.

    • Re:So what? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The lower level of solar activity significantly affects short wave radio usage. When activity is low, the ionisphere is thinner, so the upper frequencies (20-30 MHz) do not reflect back to earth. On the other hand, when the level is high, even frequencies up arund 50 MHz can bounce back. This impacts a number of radio services, but last I looked, military bands take up most of that range. Amateur radio is allowed a few slivers and they are the most active in tracking what frequencies are the best at any giv
  • ... it's about time to go home. Wait -- every 11 YEARS?!? It seems to get dark about every 24 hours around here, give or take a few.

  • post is late (Score:5, Informative)

    by awarlaw ( 102125 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @07:22PM (#10560372)
    according to www.spaceweather.com

    "One week ago, the sun was utterly blank: no sunspots. Now there are several. The largest, sunspot 682, is twice as wide as Earth -- and growing. But it does not yet pose a theat for strong solar flares. Solar activity should remain low in the days ahead."

    Low but not quite gone.
    Also, this just means that sunspots are fewer and farther between; not gone completely.
  • I am sure global warming is going to cause this.
    Somehow it is causing the Sun to heat up and not create the cold sunspots

    • Too funny (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ya know, that'd be the basis for a great april fools joke. Write a fake paper, blaming the sun's "dimming" on man made activity couched in just enough uncertainty and jargon to make it believible to the functionally retarded, and see if one could get in distributed out into the bullshit machine to get something like an AP article, or a mention on CNN. Next step: Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin make a shitty movie.
    • Nah, it's just the other way around! This *proves* that sun has cycles we don't understand, and therefore global warming can't have anything to do with human activity.
    • Gee, some people will always blame Apple.

  • Spoiler alert (Score:5, Funny)

    by vandelais ( 164490 ) on Monday October 18, 2004 @07:55PM (#10560588)
    Kaboom!

  • this one doesn't go to 11?

    ka-dum *tching*

  • The average never happens (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kettlechips ( 769541 ) on Tuesday October 19, 2004 @04:46AM (#10563043)
    "Something strange happened on the sun last week: all the sunspots vanished. This is a sign, say forecasters, that solar minimum is coming sooner than expected."

    What would really be strange, is if there was no such thing as a deviation from the statistical average. Where actual single events are concerned, deviation from the average is more the rule than the exception.

    To "expect" the average to happen and to call it strange when it doesn't, is actually not very logical.

  • hmmmm (Score:2)

    by XO ( 250276 )
    You see, something's going to happen. You must leave.

    What? What's going to happen?

    Something wonderful.

  • All Bush's fault (Score:3, Funny)

    by SirLanse ( 625210 ) <swwg69.yahoo@com> on Tuesday October 19, 2004 @01:19PM (#10566959)
    It is all the fault of the republicans, John Kerry will restore the sun to its full power. He says Bush has neglected the sun and that is the reason for this. He will do a better job with sacrifices to the sun god.
    • This got modded informative? Jesus christ. As someone who already voted for Bush in this election, I hope Kerry wins and screws everything up just so that slashdot can stop this bullshit. I don't care if the rest of the world is falling apart, I just want slashdot back to normal.

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