JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: solar, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 4 of 4
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: solar in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Galileo and some of his contemporaries left careful records of their telescopic observations of sunspots – dark patches on the surface of the sun, the largest of which can be larger than the whole earth. Then in 1844 a German apothecary reported the unexpected discovery that the number of sunspots seen on the sun waxes and wanes with a period of about 11 years.
Initially nobody considered sunspots as anything more than an odd curiosity. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, scientists started gathering more and more data that sunspots affect us in strange ways that seemed to defy all known laws of physics. In 1859 Richard Carrington, while watching a sunspot, accidentally saw a powerful explosion above it, which was followed a few hours later by a geomagnetic storm – a sudden change in the earth’s magnetic field. Such explosions – known as solar flares – occur more often around the peak of the sunspot cycle when there are many sunspots. One of the benign effects of a large flare is the beautiful aurora seen around the earth’s poles. However, flares can have other disastrous consequences. A large flare in 1989 caused a major electrical blackout in Quebec affecting six million people.
Interestingly, Carrington’s flare of 1859, the first flare observed by any human being, has remained the most powerful flare so far observed by anybody. It is estimated that this flare was three times as powerful as the 1989 flare that caused the Quebec blackout. The world was technologically a much less developed place in 1859. If a flare of the same strength as Carrington’s 1859 flare unleashes its full fury on the earth today, it will simply cause havoc – disrupting electrical networks, radio transmission, high-altitude air flights and satellites, various communication channels – with damages running into many billions of dollars.
There are two natural cycles – the day-night cycle and the cycle of seasons – around which many human activities are organized. As our society becomes technologically more advanced, the 11-year cycle of sunspots is emerging as the third most important cycle affecting our lives, although we have been aware of its existence for less than two centuries. We have more solar disturbances when this cycle is at its peak. For about a century after its discovery, the 11-year sunspot cycle was a complete mystery to scientists. Nobody had any clue as to why the sun has spots and why spots have this cycle of 11 years.
A first breakthrough came in 1908 when Hale found that sunspots are regions of strong magnetic field – about 5000 times stronger than the magnetic field around the earth’s magnetic poles. Incidentally, this was the first discovery of a magnetic field in an astronomical object and was eventually to revolutionize astronomy, with subsequent discoveries that nearly all astronomical objects have magnetic fields. Hale’s discovery also made it clear that the 11-year sunspot cycle is the sun’s magnetic cycle.
Sunspot 1-20-11, by Jason Major. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr.
Matter inside the sun exists in the plasma state – often called the fourth state of matter – in which electrons break out of atoms. Major developments in plasma physics within the last few decades at last enabled us to systematically address the questions of why sunspots exist and what causes their 11-year cycle. In 1955 Eugene Parker theoretically proposed a plasma process known as the dynamo process capable of generating magnetic fields within astronomical objects. Parker also came up with the first theoretical model of the 11-year cycle. It is only within the last 10 years or so that it has been possible to build sufficiently realistic and detailed theoretical dynamo models of the 11-year sunspot cycle.
Until about half a century ago, scientists believed that our solar system basically consisted of empty space around the sun through which planets were moving. The sun is surrounded by a million-degree hot corona – much hotter than the sun’s surface with a temperature of ‘only’ about 6000 K. Eugene Parker, in another of his seminal papers in 1958, showed that this corona will drive a wind of hot plasma from the sun – the solar wind – to blow through the entire solar system. Since the earth is immersed in this solar wind – and not surrounded by empty space as suspected earlier – the sun can affect the earth in complicated ways. Magnetic fields created by the dynamo process inside the sun can float up above the sun’s surface, producing beautiful magnetic arcades. By applying the basic principles of plasma physics, scientists have figured out that violent explosions can occur within these arcades, hurling huge chunks of plasma from the sun that can be carried to the earth by the solar wind.
The 11-year sunspot cycle is only approximately cyclic. Some cycles are stronger and some are weaker. Some are slightly longer than 11 years and some are shorter. During the seventeenth century, several sunspot cycles went missing and sunspots were not seen for about 70 years. There is evidence that Europe went through an unusually cold spell during this epoch. Was this a coincidence or did the missing sunspots have something to do with the cold climate? There is increasing evidence that sunspots affect the earth’s climate, though we do not yet understand how this happens.
Can we predict the strength of a sunspot cycle before its onset? The sunspot minimum around 2006–2009 was the first sunspot minimum when sufficiently sophisticated theoretical dynamo models of the sunspot cycle existed and whether these models could predict the upcoming cycle correctly became a challenge for these young theoretical models. We are now at the peak of the present sunspot cycle and its strength agrees remarkably with what my students and I predicted in 2007 from our dynamo model. This is the first such successful prediction from a theoretical model in the history of our subject. But is it merely a lucky accident that our prediction has been successful this time? If our methodology is used to predict more sunspot cycles in the future, will this success be repeated?
Headline image credit: A spectacular coronal mass ejection, by Steve Jurvetson. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
Science can create a better world. We are no playthings in the Earth’s fate. Here are my personal top 10 breakthroughs that are badly needed to ensure our future.
1. Smart irrigation
When farmers irrigate their land, they usually water it 100 percent of the time. But isn’t it silly for farmers to ignore the rain? Often they have no alternative, as reliable rain forecasts are not available. Ethiopia, for example, has only a dozen weather stations that report online. But nowadays many farmers own a cell phone. Google.org came up with a simple, yet brilliant idea: let farmers text their own weather observations to a central computer. That will allow experts to make a forecast and text an irrigation advice to the farmers. This is only the beginning for how information technology can revolutionize farming.
2. New energy from the earth
This century we will probably say goodbye to oil. I have great hopes for deep geothermal energy, but it doesn’t feature in many energy scenarios. Planners usually base their ideas on existing technologies. A breakthrough may make it possible to tap the heath of the Earth. If we can really learn how to drill 5 to 10 kilometers through hard rock, we can make many artificial geysers. That would make large amounts of energy available within the next 20 years. A few trials are already underway. If they succeed, we’ll have to completely revise our energy future.
3. Solar cells printed on rollers
For solar energy to provide 5 percent of the world’s energy needs, we would need to cover a surface as large as California with solar cells. We have no way of doing that with current solar cell technology, except if we start using plastic or other thin materials that can be processed on rollers. That means you can use printing techniques, which allow for faster production. Plastic solar cells have progressed over the past decade from a scientific curiosity to a promising breakthrough technology. But we need to improve their lifespan and efficiency.
4. A factory in a shoebox
Size matters. Modern electronics makes it perfectly viable to minimize the size of a chemical plant without sacrificing efficiency. So why not reverse the trend of sizing up installations and start shrinking the equipment? You can miniaturize all the vessels, pipes, and distillation columns that make up a chemical plant—down to the size of a shoebox. The local supermarket could produce your washing powder. No logistics required.
5. Personal genetic profile
Long before 2030, all parents in the US will probably be able to afford to have their baby’s DNA sequenced. Knowing the details of the DNA will make it easier to predict the effects of pharmaceuticals. And it will generate a mass of significant data for scientific research, which will further accelerate progress. Probably we’ll learn that nurture may compensate for our genetic nature. When DNA tells us where our weaknesses lie, we’ll probably start training to improve on that. Learning from DNA will make us less dependent on our genetic fate.
6. Fertilizer factories in Africa
Africa currently imports most of its fertilizers. So why not produce them locally? This would reduce the hassle of transportation on bad roads and connecting to international markets. It would bring the benefits of the Green Revolution to rural communities. Technically, we ‘would have to scale down the chemical installations to meet the local requirements, but new developments in chemistry will make that possible.
7. Antidote for the real pandemic
Not much happened in the 2009 pandemic. But we learned that 85 percent of the world’s population has little
0 Comments on 10 Things that Should Exist by 2030 as of 1/1/1900
Multiple eclipses this year have created an overall effect on the world, and depending on the birth horoscopes, individuals each have a personal response. The most difficult aspect of interpreting eclipses is that the effects don’t occur when it’s happening.
According to Robert Hand, a world renowned, prolific astrologer, solar eclipses can begin having an influence either before or after the actual event. Not only is each of the following eclipses striated with multiple angles to the sun, there’s a trine aspect to planet Uranus. The entire world will have reactions to the energy of these three events.
July 7 lunar eclipse - sets the background for the upcoming eclipses, and involves the energy of Cancer and Leo (the third eclipse) The lesser known intrinsic qualities of Cancer brings speculation of the general effects that begin on this date.
More than the typical nurturer imagery, Cancer also homogenizes various elements of the inner being that lead to a spiritual awakening within. Around the world, different people are getting together due to the group, or family influence of Cancer. A good example of this is Barack Obama’s liaison with China’s top government officials.
July 22 solar eclipse – a solar eclipse occurring only a few days before the Sun occupies the sign of Leo. The energy of this eclipse will tend to merge with the energies of the next. In general, any misconceived aspirations will come to light under the sun, which is the planetary ruler of Leo. In short, expect the light of day to be shed on certain situations around the world, as well as on an interpersonal level.
August 6 lunar eclipse – the third eclipse and the Leo Solar Festival that is also called the Festival of Sirius is the most important of the three events.
Astrology - Imagery of a study that comes to fruition is also comparable to reaching the peak of a mountain on an individual level. Worldwide, the effects won’t be known until October, which will be here soon enough.
In any event, Leo seems to be rife for some movement concerning recent pursuits, especially those of a spiritual nature.
Malvin Artley, an excellent astrologer with a background in engineering and fines arts presents information through a spiritual perspective. In his newsletter Malvin confesses - “We don’t know what is going to happen, but I do know that we will not likely have conditions for inner growth like these next few years again for some time to come and we need to make the most of them.” He gives a few hints indicating probable explosions due to the influence of Leo astrology, which is a fire sign that in turn is blends with the influence of the quixotic energies of planet Uranus.
Multiple eclipses this year have created an overall effect on the world, and depending on the birth horoscopes, individuals each have a personal response. The most difficult aspect of interpreting eclipses is that the effects don’t occur when it’s happening.
According to Robert Hand, a world renowned, prolific astrologer, solar eclipses can begin having an influence either before or after the actual event. Not only is each of the following eclipses striated with multiple angles to the sun, there’s a trine aspect to planet Uranus. The entire world will have reactions to the energy of these three events.
July 7 lunar eclipse - sets the background for the upcoming eclipses, and involves the energy of Cancer and Leo (the third eclipse) The lesser known intrinsic qualities of Cancer brings speculation of the general effects that begin on this date.
More than the typical nurturer imagery, Cancer also homogenizes various elements of the inner being that lead to a spiritual awakening within. Around the world, different people are getting together due to the group, or family influence of Cancer. A good example of this is Barack Obama’s liaison with China’s top government officials.
July 22 solar eclipse – a solar eclipse occurring only a few days before the Sun occupies the sign of Leo. The energy of this eclipse will tend to merge with the energies of the next. In general, any misconceived aspirations will come to light under the sun, which is the planetary ruler of Leo. In short, expect the light of day to be shed on certain situations around the world, as well as on an interpersonal level.
August 6 lunar eclipse – the third eclipse and the Leo Solar Festival that is also called the Festival of Sirius is the most important of the three events.
Astrology - Imagery of a study that comes to fruition is also comparable to reaching the peak of a mountain on an individual level. Worldwide, the effects won’t be known until October, which will be here soon enough.
In any event, Leo seems to be rife for some movement concerning recent pursuits, especially those of a spiritual nature.
Malvin Artley, an excellent astrologer with a background in engineering and fines arts presents information through a spiritual perspective. In his newsletter Malvin confesses - “We don’t know what is going to happen, but I do know that we will not likely have conditions for inner growth like these next few years again for some time to come and we need to make the most of them.” He gives a few hints indicating probable explosions due to the influence of Leo astrology, which is a fire sign that in turn is blends with the influence of the quixotic energies of planet Uranus.
