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Category: Solar Activity

Projections Solar Activity 

Our Sun’s Mysterious 11-Year Cycle Appears to Be Driven by Alignment of The Planets

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Every 11 years, the Sun cycles through from riotous flare and sunspot activity to a quieter period, before ramping up again. SCIENCE ALERT It’s almost as regular as clockwork, and for years astronomers have been wondering what causes it. Now, they’ve proposed a new solution. Even though the Solar System’s planets are much smaller than the Sun, the gravity of some of them is able to influence our star’s magnetic field. This, the researchers assert, is what controls the solar cycle. Venus, Earth, and Jupiter assert a small gravitational tug…

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Solar Activity 

Sun’s Exotic ‘Lighthouse’ Pulses Captured on Camera for First Time

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SPACE.COM Scientists have finally captured some exotic solar activity on camera. A new study gives photographic proof that a substance called plasma on the sun sends out radio light in pulses, much like a lighthouse flashing its beam on Earth. Plasma, which makes up most of the sun, is often called the “fourth state of matter,” coming after the more familiar forms of solid, liquid and gas. Plasma is an electrically conductive gas that occurs when negatively charged electrons are stripped from the gas in a process known as ionization.…

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Solar Activity Space Weather 

Will Geomagnetic Reversal Effects Cause a Worldwide Blackout?

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Geomagnetic reversal effects are natural and spectacular, but they could also destroy the world as we know it. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY NORTHROP GRUMAN While that may sound dramatic, renowned science journalist Alanna Mitchell’s book “The Spinning Magnet“ revealed that the next time Earth’s magnetic field flips, it could seriously damage the electric infrastructure that defines our modern civilization. What is an Electromagnetic Field? While magnetism is fascinating, it has also been historically misunderstood. According to Physics.org, Earth’s magnetic field exists because the planet’s solid iron core is surrounded by liquid metal. According…

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Featured Natural Events Solar Activity 

Evidence of Ancient Solar Storms in Tree Rings Could Pinpoint Major Historical Events

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Astrochronology is making the science of reading tree rings more reliable than ever before. PBS.ORG While traditional carbon dating of tree rings is only vaguely accurate, experts are saying that Miyake events—colossal discharges of energetic solar particles—may be able to glean exact dates of ancient world events by acting as markers within the existing timeline of dendrochronology. So far, scientists have discovered in trees two solar storms that manifest as rings with dramatically increased levels of C-14, an isotope of carbon. The first, found in 2012, dates back to 775 AD—the second, to 994 AD. Here’s…

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Featured Natural Events Solar Activity 

Solar Storms Eroding Moon and Mercury

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VIOLENT solar winds are eroding the Moon and Mercury, according to a new study, which found atoms can hit them at 800km per second. EXPRESS.CO.UK Solar winds, which are a stream of particles from solar flares released by the sun, constantly bombard celestial beings in the solar system. Planets such as Earth which have an atmosphere are largely protected form the bombardment, but for the likes of the Moon, which are atmosphere-free, solar particles are shattering rocks. TU Wien, a university in Vienna, has released results of a study which…

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Featured Solar Activity 

Sun Could Unleash Devastating ‘Superflare’

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The sun is capable of firing off an incredibly powerful superflare that could wreak havoc on Earth’s technology-dependent society, a new study suggests. The same basic processes drive the “normal” flares of high-energy radiation emitted by the sun and superflares blasted out by faraway stars, which can be thousands of times more powerful, researchers found. This result “supports the hypothesis that the sun is able to produce a potentially devastating superflare,” study co-author Anne-Marie Broomhall, from the University of Warwick in England, said in a statement. The research team analyzed…

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Featured Solar Activity 

How Solar Flares Make Matter Move at (Nearly) the Speed of Light

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Solar flares aren’t just fearsome displays of power capable of sending Earth’s technology back 200 years. They are also peculiar stellar phenomena that generate so much energy, they make particles move at nearly the speed of light. To that end, they may be models of future space travel. But how exactly they work that kind of magic stumps the scientific community. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science might have some answers. Using data gathered by the National Science Foundations’ Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope,…

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Featured Solar Activity 

NASA: Sun has Flipped Upside Down

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The sun has fully “flipped upside down”, with its north and south poles reversed to reach the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, Nasa has said. Now, the magnetic fields have once again started moving in opposite directions to begin the completion of the 22 year long process which will culminate in the poles switching once again. “A reversal of the sun’s magnetic field is, literally, a big event,” said Nasa’s Dr. Tony Phillips. “The domain of the sun’s magnetic influence (also known as the ‘heliosphere’) extends billions of kilometers beyond…

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