You’d think it would be hotter
There was a big rumble this month over an expected disruption of MTV thanks to a sunspot that went by the name of 930, but I noticed not a jot of difference. In fact it’s been absurdly cold in Bangkok these last few days, somewhere around 28 Celsius with the wind-chill factor.
Wind chill? Tracking down what became of Sunspot 930, I stumbled into SpaceWeather.com (motto: “Where would you be without us?”), where, after a moment’s embarrassed silence, they informed me that the solar wind speed was currently 630.6 kilometres per second, and that Earth is currently inside a solar wind stream flowing from one particular hole in the sun’s corona.
And Sunspot 930?
Gone, they said. Shrivelled up in the cold, probably. Showed up on December 5 with a humongous flare – an X9, whatever that means, and then fizzled out after a few days.
Anyway, Gary Palmer was showing off the incredible photo at the top of this post in the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum.
MTV? Should be okay for now. Sunpot activity spikes every 11 years and the last one that ticked off fans of Britney Spears was in July 2000. The year just ending is supposed to be the low point between peaks, so 930’s X9 burst was a bit of a shock. No one was wearing their sunglasses.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency celebrated the occasion with another terrific image, shown below, of the sun’s corona from the Hinode spacecraft it runs with a gang of other space agencies. It says here the X-Ray Telescope “reveals, for the first time, that X-ray bright points consist of magnetic loops and shows never before seen details of the polar region of the sun”.
I understand that about as much as I understand Japanese. You have to get into the astro blogs to find out more about why the sun’s magnetic poles seem to be reversing, and why the next sunspot cycle looks like it’s going to be 30% to 50% stronger than the last one.
wow to the two photos.. but my husband coomented that his respect for the sun has come down a bit when he saw it is much smaller than many other stars (!)
Your husband shouldn’t be looking at the sun, for comparing stars or any other reason. It could ruin his eyes. When I squint and take a peek, though, the sun seems to be much, much bigger than the other stars. That’s why we have daylight.
The size comparisons are from information put out by astronomers.. a mail giving comaprative sizes did the rounds when poor Pluto was struck off the list of planets for being too small..
Our Sun is 1000s of times smaller than many other Suns/stars.. though ofcourse as seen with the naked eye from Earth, it is the largest..
My God you’re a serious type. Yes, and coincidentally I just received that very email last week, which I’m going to post at Dorseyland minus the sentimental whimpering about humility.