This is one big surprise. Moments of serendipity are some of the best quotes of science: “Hmmm, that’s odd”. As an amateur radio operator myself, I find this study fascinating. If you want to know more about VLF radio, see the NASA online VLF radio receiver link below.
Learn more (and listen to the signals) at NASA’s INSPIRE online VLF radio receiver. – Anthony
From Tel Aviv University: A Lightning Strike in Africa Helps Take the Pulse of the Sun
TAU discovers an accurate tool for tracking solar rotation
Sunspots, which rotate around the sun’s surface, tell us a great deal about our own planet. Scientists rely on them, for instance, to measure the sun’s rotation or to prepare long-range forecasts of the Earth’s health.
But there are some years, like this one, where it’s not possible to see sunspots clearly. When we’re at this “solar minimum,” very few, if any, sunspots are visible from Earth. That poses a problem for scientists in a new scientific field called “Space Weather,” which studies the interaction between the sun and the Earth’s environment.
Thanks to a serendipitous discovery by Tel Aviv University‘s Prof. Colin Price, head of TAU’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, and his graduate student Yuval Reuveni, science now has a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun’s rotation when sunspots aren’t visible — and even when they are. The research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics, could have important implications for understanding the interactions between the sun and the Earth. Best of all, it’s based on observations of common, garden-variety lightning strikes here on Earth.
Waxing and waning, every 27 days
Using Very Low Frequency (VLF) wire antennas that resemble clotheslines, Prof. Price and his team monitored distant lightning strikes from a field station in Israel’s Negev Desert. Observing lightning signals from Africa, they noticed a strange phenomenon in the lightning strike data — a phenomenon that slowly appeared and disappeared every 27 days, the length of a single full rotation of the sun.
“Even though Africa is thousands of miles from Israel, lightning signals there bounce off the Earth’s ionosphere — the envelope surrounding the Earth — as they move from Africa to Israel,” Prof. Price explains. “We noticed that this bouncing was modulated by the sun, changing throughout its 27-day cycle. The variability of the lightning activity occurring in sync with the sun’s rotation suggested that the sun somehow regulates the lightning pattern.”
He describes it as akin to hearing music or voices from across a lake: depending on the humidity, temperature and wind, sometimes they’re crystal clear and sometimes they’re inaudible. He discovered a similar anomaly in the lightning data due to the changes in the Earth’s ionosphere — signals waxed and waned on a 27-day cycle. Prof. Price was able to show that this variability in the data was not due to changes in the lightning activity itself, but to changes in the Earth’s ionosphere, suspiciously in tandem with the sun’s rotation.
Taking the pulse of the sun
The discovery describes a phenomenon not clearly understood by scientists. Prof. Price, an acclaimed climate change scientist, believes it may help scientists formulate new questions about the sun’s effect on our climate. “This is such a basic parameter and not much is known about it,” says Prof. Price. “We know that Earth rotates once every 24 hours, and the moon once every 27.3 days. But we haven’t been able to precisely measure the rotation rate of the sun, which is a ball of gas rather than a solid object; 27 days is only an approximation. Our findings provide a more accurate way of knowing the real rotation rate, and how it changes over time,” he says.
Prof. Price cannot yet say how this finding will impact life on Earth. “It’s an interesting field to explore,” he says, “because nothing has been done to investigate the links between changing weather patterns and the rotation of the sun.
“Short-term changes in solar activity can also impact satellite performance, navigational accuracy, the health of astronauts, and even electrical power grid failures here on Earth. Many scientists claim that the sun’s variability is linked to changes in climate and weather patterns, so the small changes we observed every 27 days could also be related to small variations in weather patterns.
“Our data may help researchers examine short-term connections between weather, climate, and sun cycles. With this tool, we now have a good system for measuring the pulse of the sun.”
tallbloke (16:11:07) :
“I wonder if there’s a second order modulation at around 13 months (396 days) frequency.”
Number of Solar Cycles show presence of a strong subcycle with a period of 399 days or 1.0928 years). I analysed all 23 cycles individually, you can see here result for SC17 & SC23.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SC17-SC23.gif
Complete analysis:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solarsubcycle.pdf
George E. Smith (10:36:29) :
“”” evanmjones (19:52:36) :
The moon’s orbit is slowly increasing in radius due to the tidal forces slowing the earth’s rotation, which lowers it’s angular momentum; so the moon’s angular momentum about the earth has to increase to keep the sum constant; well cosntant other than for solar effects, and the continuous influx of materials from outer space, in comets, and meteorites; but who knows what that does, since there is a mass increase due to the material landing on earth; but also there is an angular momentum imparted to the earth in completley random directions depending on the trajectory of the incoming.
One way of looking at it is that the Earth and Moon are tethered together by a gravitational “string”. As the seas rotate with the Earth due to its gravity they are also pulled and dragged back by the Moon which rotates around the Earth at a much slower rate. Thus there is a slight drag on the Earth as the seas pile up on the rigid land and a corresponding flick on the Moon, pushing it further away.
The slowing of the Earth due to its increase in mass from objects from space and impacts from them would be negligible compared to this.
The Moon is moving away from the Earth at about 4 cms/ year? Considering that the Moon is about 384,000 Kms from the Earth a billion years ago the moon would have been 40,000 kms closer to the Earth. (Maybe closer still as the increase is not linear, it would have been greater the closer the distance). It would have been much bigger in the sky and the tides would have been huge.
I have noticed that you say here that there can’t be a 27 day rotation of the sun since it is not a solid, what if it IS a solid? There is some evidence that suggests that it may be here http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/ . What do we really KNOW about the inner layers of the sun anyway? Are we just going on “consensus science” on the makup of the sun, and how it operates? Since we can’t, or haven’t, actually sent a probe down INTO the sun, how do we know what is beneath the surface layer?
The above websight suggests strogly that the sun has a subsurface ferrite layer that rotates every 27.3 days, sound familiar?
Furher observations on a “solid sun” model:
There is considerable controversy on the idea that the sun is largly iron cored, or solid, however, there is some dats that suggests that the idea may have some merit, and data such as this 27 day rotation period and SOHO imaging that suggests that whatever the core of the sun is made of, it may be acting as a solid or semi-solid due to the considerable gravitational and magnetic forces involved. After all, what do we really know about hydrogen plasma under those kinds of gravitational pressures?
There is some recent data however that suggests that after the big bang, and afer the formation of hydrogen, that there were a lot of vary large hydrogen stars formed that burned out quickly and then exploded, which would result in a lot of early iron/nickel around. The question then is, how much iron/nickel compared to how much hydrogen, is there enough hydrogen around after that to account for billions of years of steller fusion?
Competing with that, if the sun were largely made of iron, wouldn’t that make it a lot more dense than obsorved, gravity wise? One could suggest that a sun made of heavier elements than hydrogen and of the observed size that it is would have more gravity than one made of largly lighter elements than hydrogen/helium. This assumes that we know how either of them would react under the gravitational and magnetic and atomic forces present in the unseen subsurface of the sun. Perhaps with the ongoing attempts to create fusion on earth as a power source we will better understand hydrogen under extreme pressures and tempetures to answer this.
Whatever the answers to the above questions are, it does appear that for whatever reason, the suns subsurface acts at least semi solid, and has a rotaion of 27.3 days, which is consistant with other data such as this lightning strike data, and it suggests that we really don’t know a whole lot about the interior of the sun and it’s makup and workings.
vukcevic (12:27:26) :
tallbloke (16:11:07) :
“I wonder if there’s a second order modulation at around 13 months (396 days) frequency.”
Number of Solar Cycles show presence of a strong subcycle with a period of 399 days or 1.0928 years). I analysed all 23 cycles individually, you can see here result for SC17 & SC23.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SC17-SC23.gif
Complete analysis:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solarsubcycle.pdf
Thanks Vuk, very interesting. Does the trough in the negative subcycle align with a particular phase of the earth-jupiter synodic period? Like opposition maybe?
This publication sounds to me like a swallow publication:
When God created the swallow, a migrating bird that winters in Africa, He started to show him how to build his nest. He showed how to make small mud balls with his tongue and how to gradually build up the nest; but He was interrupted just before reaching the point where He started to show the swallow how the nest should get covered and have a roof. The swallow, half paying attention flexing its wings and ready to fly off swiftly after juicy flies and mosquitoes said “OK, OK, I know, I know” and flew away.
That is why swallows’ nests are only half built and they have to be under a roof or an outcropping. The swallow never had the patience to listen to the end of the demonstration.
The period of observation is too short, there exists another approximate 27 day cycle (the moon one)that distorts with that period the whole atmosphere. Are these addressed? Or is it “I know, I know” and rushing merrily along to publication?
Legatus,
If Leif were here…
Observations of the spectrum of light given off by the sun give a good indication that the sun is still primarily hydrogen. In fact the physics behind stars is understood well enough that they have an fairly close estimate on the age of the sun and about how long it will be before it finishes fusioning, 4 1/2 billion years old and about 5 1/2 billion to go, if memory serves.
Information about star formation, composition, and life cycle is available in any good textbook concerning astronomy, there’s no need to speculate on that account.
tallbloke (18:00:47) :
“Thanks Vuk, very interesting. Does the trough in the negative subcycle align with a particular phase of the earth-jupiter synodic period? Like opposition maybe?”
Unfortunately, as you know, it is never as simple as that. There is continuous drift back and forth over period of a sunspot cycle or two. This is one of the reasons I believe that gravity is not a factor (except maintaining the orbits), leading me to conclude that whole process might be to do with magnetospheric feedback. If takes 8-14 months for ‘solar current’ to hit boundary of the heliosphere, and as much again to come back, hence phase drift of the subcycle, as well as variability in the duration and strength of the main 11y cycle.
vukcevic (01:51:52) :
Unfortunately, as you know, it is never as simple as that. There is continuous drift back and forth over period of a sunspot cycle or two.
Perhaps the Jupiter-Saturn synodic period affects this too. I agree with you that magnetic resonances are a more likely a fruitful area of investigation than gravity/tidal effects.
tallbloke (02:24:03) :
Perhaps the Jupiter-Saturn synodic period affects this too.
Well, it is all a bit of a guessing game. In my view J is a main driver while S is a main distracter, others E, U & N are minor ones. E is important since it is close enough, its magnetosphere can take significant amount of power from ‘solar current’ before it spreads out. Saturn much further away is large enough to provide main secondary effect, while U & N although strong are too far out, so if you take square law dispersal into account, their influence becomes minor. If you consider that SC4 had SC4a appendage (http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LostCycle.gif), than with variability of the heliosphere we can see certain logic to it.
Jeff L (16:13:29)
“An initial thought though – the orbit of the moon has a periodicity of 27.3 days,… very close to the 27 day periodicity described in the article, so why do the researchers think this is a solar related phenomena & not a lunar phenomena??”
1.) The 27 day periodicity was detectable only on the dayside of the earth
2.) The moon orbit has a sidereal periodicity of 27.23 days, while it’s synodicperiod is 29.53 days.
Hugo M (04:46:20)
If it is a moon effect it will have to do with the rotational period of 27.3 days. A sort of tide of the ionosphere, so it is only the daylight that connects the phenomenon to the sun, but maybe does not exclude the moon, since it might be an effect that needs the extra boost of the incoming sun ionisation of all frequencies.
I am speculating, of course, but as we know that all these phenomena are complex it seems very simplistic to just think of the sun.
anna v (01:24:17) :
If it is a moon effect it will have to do with the rotational period of 27.3 days. A sort of tide of the ionosphere, so it is only the daylight that connects the phenomenon to the sun, but maybe does not exclude the moon, since it might be an effect that needs the extra boost of the incoming sun ionisation of all frequencies. I am speculating, of course, but as we know that all these phenomena are complex it seems very simplistic to just think of the sun.
Anna,
compared with the hypothesis of Reuveni and Price, your speculation has the advantage that it can be more easily falsified. If the moon had such a prominent influence I would expect at least one more peak in their Fig. 3, namely at 29.5 days (same moon phase). You could argue that the observation period was too short, as there had been only about six lunar cycles passed during data aquisition.