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May 4, 2009

Some have been dimmed down



FROM-Jennifer Marohasy

Quiet Sun Shouldn’t Baffle Astronomers

THE Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.

That’s according to a BBC report by Pallab Ghosh, which goes on to explain these observations are baffling astronomers … the Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period… Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.


According to Oliver K. Manuel, Professor of Nuclear Chemistry at the University of Missouri-Rolla, writing to Benny Peiser from Liverpool University who compiles the e-newsletter CCNet:

“Astronomers - especially those associated with NASA - are baffled because they chose to ignore cycles of solar activity and all other observations and space-age measurements over the past five decades that were unexplained by the Standard Solar Model (SSM) of a Hydrogen-filled Sun.

“Angular momentum changes in the Sun cause deep-seated magnetic fields from the dense, energetic solar core to penetrate the visible solar surface (the photosphere) and produce cycles of sunspots and solar eruptions.

“Earth’s climate is closely linked to this cycle of angular momentum changes and to the number of sunspots at the solar surface.More...

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