Ode to the yellow dwarf
I love my star. I say "my" like it's personally mine, but it's really not. I'd say it belongs to the solar system as a whole. Our star, classified as a yellow dwarf, makes up 99% of the total mass of this solar system we inhabit. Doesn't that make you feel really effin little? It should.
The purpose of this post is to represent my feelings in how the sun effects this tiny blue planet we live on.
Lately I've been paying attention to the sun. By lately I mean the last seven months. I know myself well enough to recognize that I tend to be slightly obsessive in my pursuits. Some of these pursuits last hours, some a few weeks, and on occasion months or years. I've always found astronomy fascinating, but the sun is by far the coolest "close" object we have.
There it sits, our own fusion reactor, busily converting hydrogen to helium so that light and warmth are created. It's wonderful. Without this star the solar system as we know it would not exist, there would be no planets, and there would most definitely be no us.
Having said all that, you would think scientists would give the sun a little more credit.
A solar cycle is the roughly eleven (10.7 to be exact) year cycle in which the sun's magnetic dynamic operates, effecting solar wind, irradiance, radiation, sunspots, flares, coronal mass ejections, and just about everything else sun related. This system is important because when it's behaving "normally" everything in this system is status quo. That's what you want. It keeps things "normal." Normal is good.
The sun is now twelve years into its most recent solar cycle, which is number 23. There have been signs of solar cycle 24 (SC24) coming to life, but they have been small and far too intermittent. Predictions had SC24 starting in March of 2007, but March '07 came and went with no SC24 to be had. The prediction was moved to the fall of '07, but still nothing. The new date, March '08, seemed to be correct as we had SC24 spots appear in January and April, but these spots were infinitesimal at best.
Sunspots on the surface of the sun indicate upheaval, which is typically a good thing as I assure you, you'd rather it be a little warmer than a little cooler. Learn more about sunspots here.
During a solar cycle there's always a day in which the side of the sun that faces Earth is absent of sunspots. As can be seen on this graph, there have been many periods of spotless days sine 1849. However, on this graph, the typical number of months between the first spotless day of a solar cycle and the last spotless day for the last seven solar cycles has been 33 months. As of July 2008 we are officially 54 months since our first spotless day, which occurred in January 2004.
If you're reading this by this point you may be asking yourself, "Who the hell cares?"
I do. You should. It not something to freak out about, it's just something to pay attention to. If the sun effects the climate of Earth, and it would take some fancy talking to convince me otherwise, and the sun is taking a holiday, then one would expect things to cool off on this planet until the sun gets back from its vacation. Afterall, the global temperature has not risen since 1998. In fact, last year it finally went down. You can jump up and down and say it's been going up so long that the slightly dip makes no difference, but tell the southern hemisphere that. They've watched sea ice and yearly temperatures drop for the last decade and I'm sure they would like it to be a little warmer.
Point of all this unprofessional babble: The sun is quiet. I think it's something new and we should take the opportunity to study a quiet sun. Let's all just hope it gets going with SC24 soon. I like living in a temperate zone. I don't like the cold. Bring on the sun, baby!
The purpose of this post is to represent my feelings in how the sun effects this tiny blue planet we live on.
Lately I've been paying attention to the sun. By lately I mean the last seven months. I know myself well enough to recognize that I tend to be slightly obsessive in my pursuits. Some of these pursuits last hours, some a few weeks, and on occasion months or years. I've always found astronomy fascinating, but the sun is by far the coolest "close" object we have.
There it sits, our own fusion reactor, busily converting hydrogen to helium so that light and warmth are created. It's wonderful. Without this star the solar system as we know it would not exist, there would be no planets, and there would most definitely be no us.
Having said all that, you would think scientists would give the sun a little more credit.
A solar cycle is the roughly eleven (10.7 to be exact) year cycle in which the sun's magnetic dynamic operates, effecting solar wind, irradiance, radiation, sunspots, flares, coronal mass ejections, and just about everything else sun related. This system is important because when it's behaving "normally" everything in this system is status quo. That's what you want. It keeps things "normal." Normal is good.
The sun is now twelve years into its most recent solar cycle, which is number 23. There have been signs of solar cycle 24 (SC24) coming to life, but they have been small and far too intermittent. Predictions had SC24 starting in March of 2007, but March '07 came and went with no SC24 to be had. The prediction was moved to the fall of '07, but still nothing. The new date, March '08, seemed to be correct as we had SC24 spots appear in January and April, but these spots were infinitesimal at best.
Sunspots on the surface of the sun indicate upheaval, which is typically a good thing as I assure you, you'd rather it be a little warmer than a little cooler. Learn more about sunspots here.
During a solar cycle there's always a day in which the side of the sun that faces Earth is absent of sunspots. As can be seen on this graph, there have been many periods of spotless days sine 1849. However, on this graph, the typical number of months between the first spotless day of a solar cycle and the last spotless day for the last seven solar cycles has been 33 months. As of July 2008 we are officially 54 months since our first spotless day, which occurred in January 2004.
If you're reading this by this point you may be asking yourself, "Who the hell cares?"
I do. You should. It not something to freak out about, it's just something to pay attention to. If the sun effects the climate of Earth, and it would take some fancy talking to convince me otherwise, and the sun is taking a holiday, then one would expect things to cool off on this planet until the sun gets back from its vacation. Afterall, the global temperature has not risen since 1998. In fact, last year it finally went down. You can jump up and down and say it's been going up so long that the slightly dip makes no difference, but tell the southern hemisphere that. They've watched sea ice and yearly temperatures drop for the last decade and I'm sure they would like it to be a little warmer.
Point of all this unprofessional babble: The sun is quiet. I think it's something new and we should take the opportunity to study a quiet sun. Let's all just hope it gets going with SC24 soon. I like living in a temperate zone. I don't like the cold. Bring on the sun, baby!