Astronomy |
Should We Worry About The Sun?
Tiny Sunspots Moving Across Top Of Sun Lately we have been hearing that the sun, the only one that we have, is not behaving correctly. I guess in a way this is a strange suggestion, because the complaint is that the sun is NOT active enough. Usually people get disturbed when the sun is TOO active. By not active I mean that there is a drought in the production of sunspots and flares. When we have too much sunspot activity and large solar flares, we complain because it interferes with our communications. Ah we are a fickle race. The sun goes through cycles and right now, it is in what is know as a Solar Minimum. This is just the opposite of a Solar Maximum, where you have a lot of sunspot and other activities. Civilians seem to be more worried about this than scientists, although there are some scientists that are beginning to worry.
Solar Minimum Why would anyone worry about not enough sunspot activity, I am sure that most of you out there could care less? When you ask one of these people, they will tell you that they believe that that the lack of activity is preceding another ice age. We are overdue for an ice age if we look at the historical record, but things are not the same now as they used to be. One of the very big differences that comes to mind is the fact that we are in the middle of a period of global warming. How would this effect the mechanism that causes an ice age? I don't really think that anyone is sure about that point. It just might turn our that even if we were entering an ice age, the global warming factor would cancel it out, but maybe not. There are those that believe that there is no global warming going on, but there seems to be fewer and fewer of these people. We lost a lot of them when the Bush administration left office. A NASA scientist was asked how the sun's lack of activity is going to effect us, here is what he said, "There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle." He is telling us there is nothing to worry about and I am sure he knows a heck of a lot more than we do about this subject. This is one thing that I have to add however, NASA never told us until after the fact that a meteor was going to come so close to the earth that it would pass between us and one of our satellites. I understand that there would have been nothing that they could have done to avoid this and that they didn't want to cause panic, but this doesn't exactly instill confidence in what they are telling us now.
Solar Maximum The last solar maximum that we experienced was in the years 2000-2001. People that are questioning what is happening, or not happening with the sun, suggest that a solar minimum that has already lasted 3 years has lasted too long already. NASA says so what, we have experienced longer spells. They state that the average period for a solar cycle is about 131 months and has a leeway of another 14 months or so. The period we are in has lasted about 142 months so far. The longest minimal period on record lasted 70 YEARS. It occurred from 1645 to 1715. I think that this data alone should quell the fears of most people. Yet NASA is not telling us everything. During the 70 years winters became much colder in Europe. China experienced a very cold spell The summers were also dryer than usual. It turns out that the little ice age, as it is known, started in the 16th century and lasted until the mid 19th century. Whether the long solar minimum had anything to do with this is debatable. The little ice age is given many different dates so it is hard to pin down the exact dates.
Are We Headed For An Ice Age? People have been worrying about the actions of the sun ever since there were people on earth. In the beginning the sun was thought to be a god and worshiped, but as man became more aware of scientific principles and astronomy, he realized that the sun was a star and we were on one of the planets circling it. He realized that our very lives depended not only on our star, but on the close stars around us. If a close one went supernova, that is exploded, it could bathe our planet in deadly radiation that our atmosphere could not stop. Thus began the worry about not only our sun, but the stars around us. Add to this worry, the discovery that large bodies have hit the earth throughout its history and there is even more to worry about. If one wanted to, they could spend their entire lives worrying about this sort of stuff, but have no fear the odds are tremendously in our favor. We should be able to live out our short lives without ever experiencing either a major solar event or a hit. Very lightly reported is the fact that a tiny sunspot did appear about 14 months ago, but there is no change reported in the sun's magnetic field strength. By the way the tiny sunspot was the size of the earth. One point that NASA doesn't seem to mention is the fact that magnetic field readings of the sun are lower than ever seen, according to some scientists. One scientists has stated that he has been examining the sun for over 25 years and has never seen readings this low. He also refers to the 70 years solar minimum and states that this produced winters of bitter cold. He goes on to say that many people died during that time, but there were so many other things also happening that all of that can not be blamed on the solar minimum. The plague took many lives and there was volcanic activity that darkened the atmosphere. It just might turn out that this volcanic activity was more responsible for the cold than the solar minimum. Should we waste our time worrying about things that we have no control over? What do you think? |
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