From the UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN – NIELS BOHR INSTITUTE
A star like the Sun has an internal driving in the form of a magnetic field that can be seen on the surface as sunspots. Now astrophysicists from the Niels Bohr Institute have observed a distant star in the constellation Andromeda with a different positioning of sunspots and this indicates a magnetic field that is driven by completely different internal dynamics. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature.
Stars are glowing balls of gas that through atomic processes release energy that is emitted as light and heat. In the interior of the star are charged particles that swirl and spin and thereby create a magnetic field that can burst out onto the surface of the star, where it appears as sunspots. Sunspots are cool areas caused by the strong magnetic fields where the flow of heat is slowed. On our star, the Sun, the sunspots are seen in a belt around the equator, but now scientists have observed a large, distant star where sunspots are located near the poles.
Sunspots at the poles
“What we can observe on the star is that it has a large sunspot at its north pole. We cannot see the south pole, but we can see sunspots at latitudes near the poles and these sunspots are not there at the same time, they are seen alternately on the northern and southern hemispheres. This asymmetry of sunspots indicates that the star’s magnetic field is formed in a different way than the way it happens in the Sun,” explains astrophysicist Heidi Korhonen, Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
The star that has been observed is a massive star that is approximately 16 times the size of the Sun in diameter. It is located180 light years away in the constellation Andromeda. It is much too far away to be able to observe the details on the surface of a star that is only seen as a spot of light that is less than one pixel. Astronomers have previously seen sunspots on Zeta Andromeda using the Doppler method, which means that you observe that light wavelengths of the rotating star. Sunspots are cool areas and by studying the wavelengths you can construct a map of the surface temperature. So far this has been the best way to observe the surface structures of distant stars, but there may be misinterpretations, so there have been doubts about the accuracy concerning the existence of the polar sunspots.
But by using a method where you gather images from several different telescopes that you observe simultaneously, you can get far more details than you could achieve with even with the largest telescopes individually. But it was not easy. It is a method that has been used for decades in the radio waveband field and using the CHARA Array, consisting of six telescopes, it has now become possible to observe the visible and near-infrared light.
“With these new observations, we have many more details and extra high resolution. Our new measurements confirm that there are large sunspots at the poles. We see dark sunspots on the northern visible pole, while the observations reveal that the lower latitudes are areas with sunspots that do not last, but appear and disappear again with an asymmetrical distribution on the surface of the star and this was surprising,” says Heidi Korhonen, who is an expert on sunspots.
Powerful magnetic field
But why is the location of the sunspots different than those we know from the Sun?
Heidi Korhonen explains that it is a very different star than the Sun. It is a binary star, that is, two stars orbiting each other. This causes the stars to rotate more quickly. The Zeta Andromeda star, which is the larger of the two stars, rotates at 40 km per second. The Sun rotates at 2 km per second.
“It is the rapid rotation that creates a different and very strong magnetic field. The strong magnetic field gives a more complicated dynamo effect that resembles what you see at the stage where a new star is being created. Here we are seeing the same effect in an old active star that is in its final stage,” explains Heidi Korhonen.
On the Sun, the sunspots appear and disappear on a regular basis and the number increases periodically approximately every 11 years. The magnetic field that creates the sunspots can also trigger large, explosive discharges of plasma, causing solar storms to hit the Earth. These storms result in very strong northern lights and can also cause problems for orbiting satellites and the power grid on Earth.
###
Really???
How much is that in rotation units?
Slywolfe May 5, 2016 at 3:22 pm
Really???
Okay you asked the question, why do you think the one or the other rotation periods are wrong? I have all night. 😀
michael
“Rotation rate” is the number (or fraction) of rotations in a given time (rpm, deg/sec, rad/min, etc). ‘km per second’ is not helpful.
He isn’t, he’s making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the likelihood that the surface speed varies with latitude. Of, course, being a big gas bag (without a bag), each star could have different rotation rates, just as our sun does.
For our sun, radians per fortnight likely leads to convenient sized numbers since it rotates once every 25 days (equator) to 36 days (poles).
It’s about 16 times larger in diameter so if you use that to scale the rotation speed, the rotation rate is about the same.
I agree, strange units. If this star is 16 times the diameter of the sun, then if it rotated at the same rotational speed it would rotate at about 32 km/s – not that much different. Further, if you can’t see the S pole, how does your one pixel of the N pole tell you anything about it? Very poor science reporting.
The article stated that while they can’t see the south pole they can see the latitudes near it and that there is an increase in sun spots in the areas they can see that are near the south pole.
I agree – really? I would expect a binary system to cause each to slow down from tidal forces, much as the earth and moon slow each other. The moon has slowed so much that it rotates once+ each month.
The larger Zeta Andromeda would be more analogous to the earth, but I still would expect some slowing. Perhaps it is slowing, but because of its size, it started at a much higher spin rate than our sun.
Really now ? , one pixel !!
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
― Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
============
Just a comment from the cheap seats 🙂
Doppler is soooo powerful… /sark
Why not. At least one mythical “sea monster” (i.e. fish) was created, or perhaps modeled, from a single tooth. It all depends on how you frame the subject. Nothing is impossible with a liberal frame of reference and inference (i.e. created knowledge).
The assertions are, of course, breathtaking, and undisclosed, but traditionally conceived and progressed (i.e. monotonic change) based on previous, undisclosed or “adjusted” assertions. It is the scientific equivalent of a Jenga puzzle. Also, it makes the pattern matchers happy.
Oh, well. People want to believe in something. Neither time nor space nor logical domains (e.g. scientific frame of reference) are a constraint for people’s imaginations and leaps of faith.
Nahhh, LESS than one pixel. No wonder just about anything put out by grant funded groups should be taken with a large block of salt….
It’s an “extra high resolution” partial pixel though. :-/
Sometimes flies land on the lens!
Yes, but it’s a BFP.
If you red it you will see they have used aperture synthesis to increase the resolution to beyond one pixel
It would have been interesting if they had quoted the angular resolution of the synthesized aperture and also the angular size of the Star
The term ‘less than one pixel’ is elastic. What pixel? Pixel on a monitor is fractions of a millimeter; pixel on typical iPhone camera sensor is way smaller than that. Scientists often talk up (or down) numbers with natural language to make it all the more amazing (lab ‘petawatt’ laser hyperbole is good example). While grains of salt are always warranted, I suspect these observations are more correct than not.
> Really now ? , one pixel !!
Instead of the sarcasm, perhaps you should:
1) reread the the post about the doppler effect
2) Read up on how we image the far side of the sun through helioseismology.
2a) Read up on how we can locate earthquakes from what is essentially a “one pixel” data stream from a few seismographs. (Note it only takes one to determine the distance to the epicenter.
3) Read up on how we first discovered exoplanets by recording periodic dips in the light coming from the star as the planet transited in front of the star on each orbit.
[Rant on]
Instead of laughing at a one pixel image, I’m disappointed to see this comment and subsequent piling on. I intend to celebrate what we can do with a single data stream. You nattering nabobs of negativism are welcome to cling to the underside of your dark cloud.
All what you say would be very adequate if all these fantastic “discoveries” (that are so conveniently are simply impossible to verify) would be done with self funding or on a private buck. However, since we all here are paying for these discoveries we are all entitled to judje them. And, as we see, for example, from the exoplanet doscovere, Geoff Marcy’s behaviour, bunch of academics involved have very much shifted moral compass. Therfore, it is reasonable that laymen’s attitude is very much sceptical expecting some sort of tricketry.
I’ll believe it’s an image when they publish an image. Until then, it is arm-waving. And I say this as a former optical engineer. “Pixels” (picture elements) by definition have no subsidiary structure. Some forms of sub-pixel resolution is possible, but it results in theoretical image constructs. These constructs, however, can be graphically generated, viewed, and published.
What is the point-spread-function for the individual telescopes? What is the modulation transfer function for the focal plane cameras? What is the possible resolution from the synthetic array? Can we see the image, please? I don’t doubt that they have done something, but I do doubt that they have anything to show.
Ric
Showing your [and my] age there.
“Nattering nabobs of negativism”
Almost the archetypal [Spiro] Agnew alliteration!
But I think you are right. These folk are doing a lot – possibly some of the conclusions are open to debate, although I don’t have the knowledge to know – based on not a lot of initial information, but some impressive cross-validation, etc.
Auto
It really is sad the way the climate warmistas have poisoned the well towards all scientists.
The reference to a single pixel was for a single telescope.
The article then went into a discussion of the technique that they used to enhance the resolution.
Yet so many people are willing, without actually bothering to understand the technique of the science behind it, to arbitrarily declare that these scientists are lying.
More nattering from a resident nabob ( who by the way resents the clinging negativism remark).
If you’ve got it all figured out, just tell us, it would avoid all this consternation.
Rant /
They stated that they used a technique to combine the output of several different telescopes to increase the resolution. Similar to a technique that has been used in radio telescopes for many years.
I thought this a unusual way to phrase what actually happens.
I also found the term “northern lights” a bit antiquated. Besides, coronal holes, CMEs and polarity reversals in the heliospheric current sheet stimulate aurorae more than the sunspot number.
So when are we going to look into what caused the Sahara to go from a thriving jungle to the world’s largest desert (due to a massive polar shift) and why isn’t there more people studying the mechanics of it? Not everthing is due to climate change, evidently.
No polar shifts necessary and the Sahara was a thriving savanna not a jungle. One excellent possibility is that the Sahara is a desert in large part because of inadequate atmospheric CO2. In fact, along with other deserts, the Sahara around the margins is considerably greener at present than it was at the dawn of the satellite era. Because of the dynamics of plant growth, mulching effects and rainfall, the greener areas will tend to expand gradually because they allow more water from rainfall to be trapped. In addition, it is very well known that plants use water more efficiently at higher CO2 levels. The conclusion is that as long as CO2 continues to increase, we can expect deserts to continue to shrink.
CO2 concentrations haven’t changed much in the last 20K years. It has been theorized that rain belts can move north or south as the planet heats or cools.
Cool.
On a more serious note… How do we know this apparent sunspot isn’t an alien mega structure providing some sort of radiative shielding that allows the planet Tattoine to be habitable? It is 180 light years away, after all. 😀
I take it this is a solo effort. Maybe wookiepedia can help
Wookiepedia is not a scholarly source and should not be referenced on matters of such importance. And, it’s ‘Solo’ not “solo”… geez.
It’s “Revenge of the the Sixth”, doncha know … … … …
Bad puns are punishable by flogging with a wet noodle!
All we know is that there is a correlation between the image and object that varies between zero and one depending on the emissions, intervening “space”, and other uncharacterized and unknown properties that transform and corrupt the observed signal.
The scientific frame of reference is notoriously and necessarily limited in both time and space. Unfortunately, people are impatient and a philosophy can only influence but not determine an outcome.
What are you trying to imply that we have documented our 200 million year cycle around the milky way and than we can predict the climate of our solar system as it passes around?
Documented 200 million year cycle? I’d like to see those documents. And If you can show me the documents, I’ll show you where we can predict the climate as we orbit Sagittarius A*. 🙂
The article is a press release
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Copenhagen – Niels Bohr Institute. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
We need to read the full paper to make heads or tails or it.
Me I’m off cooking Fries.
michael
This post is from where it says it’s from: http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news16/star-with-different-internal-driving-force-than-the-sun/
No paper listed.
Quick! Heidi data!
Better off mass mess cooking Fries.
Dr. Svalgaard, If you’re here in blogland, would a binary star conceivably have a more complicated dynamo (or multiple dynamics)?
No, not as far as we know. That there are large stars with spots near the poles is not news:
http://www.leif.org/research/Stars-Have-Spots-Too.png
Superleif strikes again. Awesome!
Quick question – what is a “Dark Cosmology Centre” doing looking at something shiny?
Venus turning spin
not unlikely happened when Jupiter changed place :
Jupiter hasn’t always been in the same place in our solar system. Early in the history of our solar system, Jupiter moved inward towards the sun, almost to where Mars currently orbits now, and then back out to its current position.
Would that be the theory that Mars and Jupiter nearly collided and the plasma discharge between the occulted planets passing was what the early civilizations described as a chariot wheel in the sky? I have a fascination for that because it most most simply explains the ancient NH surface of Mars being largely blown into interplanetary space to later to fall back as boulder debris, or be be found in meteorites on earth, or as asteroids herded by the close passes of a tenth planet’s perihelion every few thousand years. The surface of Mars really does look like pictures of arc damage to me.
Not even close.
This occurred billions of years ago.
Basically the existence of dust in the solar system caused the outer planets to lose orbital momentum and begin spiraling in towards the sun. The inner planets were helped when the sun’s solar wind blew such dust out of the inner solar system.
At some point Jupiter and Saturn reached a point where Jupiter was orbiting the sun 3 times for every 2 orbits by Saturn. This caused a harmonic between the two of them that transferred orbital energy from Saturn to Jupiter, causing Jupiter’s orbit to increase.
The fact that Jupiter didn’t toss all the inner planets out of solar system is pretty much a lucky coincidence.
PS, where did the energy for this so called arc come from?
Do you have any idea how much energy would be involved to do what you theorize.
Basically what you describe is 100% impossible and only total loons would put forth such ramblings.
Hmm… Pop has fallen for pop science! Smack me quick!
So Venus just koppheistert and stabilized upside down.
If they could only figure out why Venus has an opposing rotation, I’d be satisfied.
@ Klohrn, 10:09 pm, That is something that is a real question that so far all the “scientists” have not been able to give a clear answer to, much like climate change. As far as this massive sun spinning around much faster than our sun and the orbit of another companion sun? Maybe that is why the sun spots are at the (North pole at least) poles. This article is so filed with maybes and other could be’s it to me is worthless.
I’ve never seen that beautiful blue pattern in the night sky–but then, I’ve never looked for it. It does make me wonder whether Venus has any significant gravitational attraction for the Earth (or vice versa) with resultant decreases in their distance from each other.
It’s powered by more powerful galactic electric currents, not nuclear fusion. Our sun is also powered by galactic electric currents, so there is no different mechanism. Establishment theory has cause and effect of a star’s magnetic field backwards. The magnetic field is part of the circuit that powers stars, not a product of the star.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2011/12/05/considering-the-electric-sun-part-1/
No, Mark, that is complete nonsense. We can directly observe the neutrinos from the center of the sun where the fusion takes place.
If we could see the center of our own Sun, we should easily be able to see the supposed “molten and also magnetic” core of Earth.
We can ‘see’ the center of the Sun in neutrino emission, and the interior of the Earth and the Sun [and many stars] using seismology [used by oil companies to prospect for oil and gas].
Leif, not being a plasma physicist, is obviously unaware that fission is a byproduct of high energy plasmas, and so has the cause and effect mixed up.
Perhaps you are confusing fusion and fission.
Note where I worked when this paper was written:
http://www.leif.org/research/Sun%20Magnetic%20Sector%20Structure.pdf
Now that was embarrassing.
Mark;
Why do some stars explode?
Obviously caused by a short circuit in the galactic electric currents.
‘see’ < yes all the way thru to the other side no doubt, Like diggin holes to China the results remain inconclusive as the op's article.
Oh, yes, we can see spots on the backside of the Sun, by looking all the way through.
https://www.cora.nwra.com/~werne/eos/text/farside.html
http://www.nso.edu/press/MonsterSunspot
Awesome! Pretty much science compared to creating hockey sticks from upside down lake sediments.
Best cure against depressions slightreturn is reading comments signed lsvalgaard.
+1 I wonder how long long one can take the neutron repulsion conspiracy crackpot stuff before breaking and giving up.
Oops, it looks like I found a moderated word. Sorry Mods.
Do we know why sunspot numbers oscillate with an ~ 11 year period?
Presumably it must be something to do with CO2?
Ignoring your nonsense, the answer is that the sun [like the Earth] has an atmospheric circulation – matter moving from the equator towards the poles in about 2 years – at the surface. There is a return flow at depth but it is about five times slower because the density is higher. Sunspots form in the return flow, hence the ~10 year period [it is not an oscillation] .
Now trying to say Sunspots are “spots of cool solar matter” now that is nonsense.
Obviously the hole gap in surface matter is caused by EM, so, if it is EM and not cool matter, we should still see the hot matter below (in a thermonuclear model) yet..
http://49.media.tumblr.com/f5de229bcde5d645dbf5b7132a30ec37/tumblr_mux9yd1yC31rnq3cto1_500.gif
Sunspots are ‘cooler’ than the surrounding atmosphere, but still hot [4000K]. If you took the smallest sunspot we could see and removed the rest of the sun, that tiny spot alone in the sky would shine brighter than the full moon.
That you can’t see very deep into the sun is due to the fact that the solar plasma is very opaque. You can’t see very far either on a foggy day.
We know that a house is on fire when we can see the flames and the smoke, and, similarly, we know that the sun is powered by fusion because we can directly observe the ‘smoke’ in the form of the neutrinos produced by the fusion of just the right energies and in just the right numbers as theory predicts, and the fire in form of the heat we get from the Sun [in just the right amount as predicted].
Willful ignorance [as you display] is a terrible waste of human brainpower. But, hey, it is your brain and your loss.
Solar theory is a mess, you know it I know it. No single theory can explain the sun, not one of them
In that case, my theory that stars are powered by planet sized hamsters running on really big wheels must also be considered.
Thanks Leif
However the equator to polar – and back – circuit by itself would be a steady state. So what aspect of this cycle makes the number of sunspots – err – go up and down?
What happens is that the magnetic field from decaying sunspots is transported to the poles by the circulation. There, the field [which is quite weak] is dragged down into the sun, where it is amplified by induction. The now, much stronger field rises to the surface causing sunspots, that decay and the cycle continues.
“Stars are glowing balls of gas” Some of the latest high res from the Swedish telescope.
hardly. This matter does not behave like gas it behaves like bubbling viscose liquid.
http://i.imgur.com/JPNWQmU.gif
http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~rutte101/dot/albums/images/20040929-apod-gb.jpg
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach//education/senior/cosmicengine/images/sun/sun3dsstsml.jpg
Nothing I say effects the science, I am just calling it like I see it.
In thermonuclear models this makes no sense at all, that is magnetic influence creating that gap in surface matter, you can see through magnetism, where is the hot matter beneath.
Metals and gas at high temperatures produce this in manufacturing.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0012/fig3c.gif
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0012/fig4.gif
Note the plumes in the finished product, much like the plumes in the penumbra.
how about some gold
There is an interesting argument for metallic hydrogen on the surface for the sun.
I have no idea if it is valid but I can see why observation might lead to such a hypothesis.
@Mark
“I have no idea if it is valid but I can see why observation might lead to such a hypothesis.”
Observations can be deceiving.
In 1546 John Heywood (grandfather of poet John Donne) wrote “The Moon is a green cheese”, a “green cheese” meaning unripened or new cheese.
So he was merely making an observation about the appearance of the Moon, not its chemical analysis.
😐
There is metallic hydrogen near the core of Jupiter. However the temperatures in the sun, even the outer surface, allow nothing to even come close to being liquid.
Nonlinear-chaotic pattern formation is very pervasive in nature.
It causes similar patterns to appear in very diverse systems.
This right here is exactly why astronomers keeping getting “surprised” by stellar phenomena.
“Stars are glowing balls of gas that through atomic processes release energy that is emitted as light and heat.”
Stars are double-shelled plasmatic z-pinches in interstellar filament ropes. They’re an electromagnetic phenomenon, with fission as a byproduct. Not a fissile phenomenon with electromagnetism as a byproduct.
Jeez, another willful idiot.
…Believe it or not, I’m beginning to understand your frustration !! : )
You’d think by now that people would have figured out that unbridled skepticism and unbridled speculation are as useless as touting a consensus about something one doesn’t understand.
What is the power source that generates this mythical filament ropes that powers all the stars in the galaxy?
Yes, an electric current from point A to point B shorts out the charge difference between A and B, so the question can be rephrased: how is that charge difference maintained? What separates the charges after they have shorted out?
But, anyway, the whole notion is nonsense as we don’t even need to look for an alternative energy source. Fusion works just fine, and as a by-product builds the very elements that make up ourselves: we are star-stuff.
Phil B: Please cite even one scientific reference that asserts FISSION to be the power source within the sun. (Or learn the difference between fission and fusion. Either way…)
Phil,
Umm, for starters, please go back to school and learn the difference between fission and fusion.
Thanks!
I think Phil B is channeling Sheldon.
Wow, these interstellar filaments should be easy to find given how much energy they control. What does the experiment look like to map them and who has observational data?
I second Dr. Svalgaard’s opinion at 7:23 AM. Which makes me wonder where the currents come from that generate the sun’s magnetic field (or also the Earth’s magnetic field). Mere presence of a plasma does not imply the existence of an electric current, or we should see current loops in puddles of quicksilver.
Now, Dr. Laszlo Kortvelyessy (http://www.the-electric-universe.info/) has an interesting hypothesis that solar thermal conditions are sufficient to make the sun a gigantic thermionic emitter of electrons, which implies a monopolar outward current. Further, it implies that the sun, as a whole, is a charged body. A charged body in rotation will generate a magnetic field.
A conductor moving across a magnetic field induces a current [a dynamo] which causes a magnetic field to be crossed by the conductor and so on in a self-sustaining process. All that is needed is an initial magnetic field. Where does that field come form? One possibility is http://www.leif.org/research/The-Origin-of-Magnetic-Fields.pdf
Very interesting. I’ll have to think on it. If you are depending on a cross product of stochastic properties, I would expect any such seed field to be fluctuating in all directions, with zero magnitude at the bulk level.
It just gets silly when the ‘electric universe theory’ turns up and someone says “…makes me wonder where the currents come from that generate the sun’s magnetic field”
In context, isn’t there another star orbiting Zeta Andromeda? It appears to be the beginning of binary star system where one star is effecting another one. Too obvious??
The observed darker area at the polar regions on ‘Zeta’ are clearly a result of the contrast of activity between the interaction with this star and it’s equator. 🙂
Foot note: Zeta’s Polar field is produced by way of E=mc2
*its (further footnote lol)
Silly? Have you read Kortvelyessy’s book? This is not Ralph Juergens territory. I have formally studied plasma physics, magnetohydrodynamics, and astrophysics, and L.K. (for short) is very much on form, avoiding the usual problems of how this all could be a process. (The thermionic emission argument is a big breakthrough in that direction.) Nor does he argue that the solar power source is anything other than fusion.
And, by the way, DO you have an explanation for the currents that generate the sun’s magnetic field? (No fair to borrow the good Doctor’s paper on this.) Everybody seems so content to cite the “dynamo” effect, which, in essence, amounts to arm-waving based on a theory of lifting oneself by one’s own bootstraps. But the whole subject is child’s play if the sun is a charged body.
If the Sun were negatively charged, the protons in the solar wind could not escape the Sun. Similarly, if the sun were positively charged, the electrons could not escape. The solar wind and the sun are VERY nearly electrically neutral. This much was known a century ago.
In reference to Dr. Svalgaard’s remark, the devil is in the details. “Very nearly” admits of many phenomena. In particular, the case for electron escape is much stronger than for proton escape. In a thermally-equlibriated plasma, both electrons and protons would be characterized by a Boltzmann energy equal (roughly) to kT. This is manifested as kinetic energy of the particles. But the thermal velocity of the electrons would be ~43 times greater than for protons. Both particles would have a typical Boltzmann velocity distribution. And, just as helium atoms escape Earth’s gravity by exceeding the escape velocity, some portion of the electrons would escape Solar gravity AND ELECTROSTATIC ATTRACTION (sorry for the caps, but I can’t figure out how to do italics). Hardly any protons would escape, ergo the vast majority of charged escapees would be electrons. (This is separate from neutral plasma that is pushed away by ordinary pressure or coronal MHD effects.)
And, as the electrons travel, they will naturally form zeta-type magnetic fields and coalesce into current filaments (something that Kortvelyessy describes as a “fifth state of matter”). But they are not currents being driven by an electromotive force. “How can this be?” someone will wonder. It is no more miraculous than the hurtling of meteorites through space, without there being either pitcher or catcher.
And, to the extent the sun would have any charge at all, a charged rotating sphere produces an external magnetic field. (I don’t think I am making this up. Here is a reference, “Electromagnetic Fields of a Rotating Shell of Charge” http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/rotatingshell.pdf.)
What’s not to like?
Hardly any protons would escape
The solar wind is a neutral mixture of protons and electrons, so protons do escape.
a charged rotating sphere produces an external magnetic field.
But the solar magnetic field is not of the form a charged rotating sphere would produce. For once, the solar magnetic fields reverse and cycle.
“Hardly any protons would escape.” From thermal emission, no they don’t. See my following sentence: “This is separate from neutral plasma that is pushed away by ordinary pressure or coronal MHD effects.” Not fair to accuse me of being oblivious to the very fact that I cite in my discussion. The point, of course, is that there is an asymmetry in the kinetic populations of electrons and protons that makes net electron emission a preferred possibility.
As for the difference in the solar magnetic field, good point. But the current theory still does not seem to explain how there could be currents internal to the sun. Back to the blackboard…
The current [that is: the modern] theory explains the internal electrical currents very well. There is a circulation of the plasma [due to temperature gradients] so that the conducting plasma moves across the sun’s magnetic field. That according to Faraday’s law induces an electric current inside the sun. The induced current has a magnetic field of its own, which strongly amplifies the original field, and eventually shows up in sunspots. No mystery.
This is separate from neutral plasma
The bulk solar wind leaving the sun is electrically neutral.
Dear Dr. Svalgaard,
You have a strange rhetorical approach, amounting to restating my own words as a refutation or chastisement of the fact that I said them in the first place (“neutral plasma”…I do know my MHD physics). What makes the electrons of the neutral plasma different from emission electrons? The fact that the neutral plasma electrons have a much lower temperature (i.e., velocity) than the emission electrons, and will therefore be electrostatically “bound” to the positive ions. Oh, well. I notice that you do not dispute the possibility of there being emission electrons through gravity filtering of the Boltzmann velocity distributions.
But we seem to crash and burn on the logical fallacy of assuming the thing to be explained, namely the SOURCE of the solar magnetic field. Your argument is simply: given a magnetic field and a circulating conductor, we can get a current…which will produce a magnetic field! Shake hands all around! Not hard if you have a magnetic field to start with. My recollection of Electrical Engineering 101 was that, in any case, the magnetic fields formed by induced currents were contrary to the imposed magnetic field (thus giving rise to resistance against the motion).
And who is to say we really know all there is to know? Any emission electrons might well be affected by the solar magnetic field through the cyclotron process, so that they will be guided away from the sun along the magnetic field axis (much like leakage of plasma from a magnetic bottle). Not likely we would see much of that directly.
Your comment display so profound ignorance about elementary cosmic plasma physics, that it is not possible in the limited space in this forum to educate you. An accessible textbook is Gene Parker’s ‘Conversations’ : [chapter 1 is here] http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8454.pdf
Using language appropriate to our friends Mark and Phil and others capable of believing the electric universe fallacy:
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The distances in space separating planets, stars and galaxies, are many orders of magnitude larger than the sizes of even the largest objects. Thus these fictitious electric filaments, supposedly linking stars and planets, when integrated over those vast distances, if they existed, would account for nearly all the mass in the universe. And yet there is zero observational evidence for their existence. Can we call them dark matter? No – if they are electromagnetic phenomena then they should be readily observable. We have to call them what they are – an embarrassing delusion.
But that’s an interesting thought. An alternative to the “missing mass” being dark matter and energy. I always thought dark matter and energy was an embarrassing kludge.
Three friends go to a restaurant for lunch lol
Mark G
But the filaments are not dark. They (supposedly) carry electromagnetic charge, so are eminently observable – as is their absence.
From every direction that you look there are problems.
What about the expansion of the universe? Stars are moving away from each other at speeds up to tens of thousands of km per second. How do the strings hold up to being so stretched?
Black holes attract and destroy each other forming galaxies and stars, then it’s all about some lightening… that done something… (private joke!) 😉
This made me think of the “Cosmic Microwave Background (many maps),” and the polarization of starlight.
All these together and more might…
Interstellar magnetic fields (varying)
Interstellar winds (varying)
Interstellar current sheets (varying)
Interstellar corotating interaction regions (CIRs)
…Might produce as you called them “fictitious electric filaments.”
A star w/spots near the poles? Couldn’t that be caused by simply a much faster rotating (younger?) star than the sun?
lsvalgaard
May 6, 2016 at 5:21 am
Note where I worked when this paper was written:
http://www.leif.org/research/Sun%20Magnetic%20Sector%20Structure.pdf
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Thanks Dr. S., needed to find that link…
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Phil B
May 6, 2016 at 4:52 am
“””Stars are double-shelled plasmatic z-pinches in interstellar filament ropes. .”’
lsvalgaard
May 6, 2016 at 5:19 am
Jeez, another willful …
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Oh jeez, I was going to ask what a “double-shelled plasmatic z-pinch” was.
Kinda like don’t ask, don’t tell, policy here.
If I was Phil, I might go looking for Huge ( in terms of AU size) null points in the heliospheric magnetic field at the Interstellar magnetic field interface region.
You know Dr. S., one of the possible scenarios for the location of Voyager 2 is that it is now located in a “magnetic null point,” region of space, it has been suggested. Which partly explains that abrupt cut off…
Note to Bob Tisdale…have you seen the huge magnetic null point located in the equatorial pacific?
http://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/historical_declination/
“a very different star than the Sun.”
Larger than the Sun.
Smaller than the Sun.
Different FROM the Sun, dammit.
ptolemy2
May 7, 2016 at 4:26 am
The distances in space separating planets, stars and galaxies, are many orders of magnitude larger than the sizes of even the largest objects. Thus these fictitious electric filaments, supposedly linking stars and planets, when integrated over those vast distances, if they existed,
would account for nearly all the ….mass …. in the universe.
And yet there is zero observational evidence for their existence. Can we call them dark matter? No – if they are electromagnetic phenomena then they should be readily observable. We have to call them what they are – an embarrassing delusion.
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Perhaps you might find your missing, “mass” in the article below…
Universe’s missing mass found in the cosmic web
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/dec/02/universes-missing-mass-found-in-the-cosmic-web
Dec 2, 2015
http://images.iop.org/objects/phw/news/thumb/19/12/2/PW-2015-12-02-Cartlidge-cosmic.jpg
The best estimate yet of how much mass is contained within the long, tenuous threads of hot gas thought to span the vast distances between galaxy clusters has been made by a team of astrophysicists in Europe. The researchers used the XMM-Newton X-ray satellite to characterize three “filaments” of plasma extending from the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Such filaments are believed to make up a cosmic web that permeates the universe, and the team says that the filaments are likely to contain much of the universe’s ordinary or “baryonic” matter….
….The seeds for this web can be seen in the tiny fluctuations within the CMB; as the universe expanded, gravitational attraction caused slightly denser regions to accumulate mass, while less-dense regions lost mass. ….
Trillions of solar masses
The researchers then established what fraction of the filaments’ total mass the gas represents. To do so, they studied images from the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes of galaxies lying behind Abell 2744, and worked out how much the light from those galaxies is bent by the gravitational pull of the intervening matter. They concluded that the filaments each weigh in at a few tens of trillions of solar masses. In other words, the researchers say, gas makes up roughly 10% of each filament by mass, with most of the rest being dark matter.
According to Eckert, galaxy surveys and numerical simulations show that most of the universe’s galaxies and dark matter lie in the filaments of the cosmic web. As such, he says, if the filaments contain significant amounts of hot gas, then that gas would contain a sizeable proportion of all baryons – about half, he estimates. “Our findings strengthen evidence for a picture of the universe in which a large fraction of the missing baryons resides in the filaments of the cosmic web,” he and his colleagues wrote in a paper published in Nature.
Dr. S., if you’re still lurking nearby.
I have a quick question?
On Earth, the magnetic field distribution, has a westward drift over time.
As well as evolves in its spatial distribution and magnetic pole locations.
On Earth, the inner core rotates faster than the outer surface.
While the plate tectonic uplifts are eastward.
Do the long term solar sector structures have a westward drift?
And wondering if the sun’s orbit about its barycenter creates changes in the angle with respect to the Interstellar magnetic field.
We see two major compression regions, due to the interstellar magnetic field reconnection regions.
They are astronomical in size, one at the nose and one on the tail, of the heliosphere.
Do the long term solar sector structures have a westward drift?
It has both a westward and an eastward drift:
http://www.leif.org/research/Long-term%20Evolution%20of%20Solar%20Sector%20Structure.pdf
And wondering if the sun’s orbit about its barycenter creates changes in the angle with respect to the Interstellar magnetic field.
Of course not. And because the solar wind is supersonic, nothing magnetic that happens out in interstellar space has any influence on solar activity.
lsvalgaard
May 8, 2016 at 1:26 pm
…Of course not. And because the solar wind is supersonic, nothing magnetic that happens out in interstellar space has any influence on solar activity.
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Well I hate to be the one to burst your heliospheric bubble….
The Interstellar Magnetic Field (ISMF) is piling up at the heliosphere’s nose, (southern dent).
Creating a strong reconnection region.
The solar winds, current and field provide the energy for the reacceleration of whatever H, He, GCR, CR is available. Thru processes like charge exchange and corotating interaction regions.
These particles are found inflowing thru the heliosphere, as the upwind crescent at 1AU and the downwind focusing cone, that Earth orbits thru in Dec.
Above the dent, huge magnetic null point, great place for an inflow…
They say there could be multiple null point regions at the edge. But the best place for some magnetic reconnection will be where the two fields meet up…
So, then after the correction to the interstellar inflow direction, we still have 5 degrees of change?
CORRECTING THE RECORD ON THE ANALYSIS OF IBEX AND STEREO DATA REGARDING VARIATIONS IN THE NEUTRAL INTERSTELLAR WIND
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/801/1/61/meta#apj507712s3
P. C. Frisch1, M. Bzowski2, C. Drews3, T. Leonard4, G. Livadiotis5, D. J. McComas5,6, E. Möbius4, N. Schwadron4, and J. M. Sokół2
Published 2015 March 4
Well I hate to be the one to burst your heliospheric bubble
Well, you don’t. None of this is relevant for any effect on solar activity.
For the zillionth time: The NEUTRAL interstellar gas can penetrate the heliosphere and get in close to the sun. As it does it is ionized [by various mechanisms] and swept right back out again, even accelerated in the process. The former neutral gas is not influenced by the magnetic field [reconnecting or not]. The swept out gas is dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field, regardless of the interstellar field, which has no unflunece on the sun or the inner heliosphere.
lsvalgaard
May 8, 2016 at 11:09 pm
For the zillionth time: ……..
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Apologee to you Dr. S. Your one of the ‘best’ going on, round these parts of the internet.
I’m only looking for an effect/affect of possible accretion.
The accretion reconnection regions of some stars are within 10 solar radii.
Possible corotating interaction regions generated by by currentsheet crossings of inner most planets (<1AU) magnetospheres and accelerated stuff back to the solar corona for heating.
Pressure, flow, crescent and cone. My hobby thingy.
Way outta there the solar wind becomes "sub-Alfv´enic."
Everything you always wanted to know about separatrices and null points, below…..
MHD flows at astropauses and in astrotails
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.05122v1.pdf
D.H.Nickeler1,T.Wiegelmann2,M.Karlick´ y1,andM.Kraus1
5 Discussion and Conclusions
…With respect to the heliosphere, the multiple decreases and increases in the magnetic field strength as well as in other physical parameters measured by Voyager 1 (Burlaga et al., 2013) indicates several crossings of either one or several individual separatrices. Such a scenario is in good qualitative agreement with the multiple separatrix structures due to more than one null point as proposed here and formerly by Nickeler et al. (2006). A similar scene considering multiple, nested separatrices and magnetic islands was recently suggested based on detailed numerical simulations by Swisdak et al. (2013). Interestingly, our results for the two null point scenarios also agree with the recently proposed presence of a heliocliff region inside the heliopause (FiskandGloeckler,2013).
In particular, the heliocliff might be interpreted as the separatrix resulting from the second null point (as shown in the middle left panel of Fig.1), and the streamlines originating from the monopole part, which bend into the heliotail, would represent the open heliosheath as introduced by Fisk and Gloeckler (2013). In the heliocliff region, the model of Fisk and Gloeckler (2013) turns out to produce a super-Alfv´enic field-aligned flow, while in our model the flow close to the heliopause and in the heliotail region is field-aligned but can also be sub-Alfv´enic. Furthermore, the presence of magnetic shear flows can produce vortex current sheets (Nickeler and Wiegelmann, 2012) leading to the generation of instabilities and magnetic reconnection close to separatrices. In the current work were strict our analysis to a maximum of two separatrices and we apply the mapping only to the heliotail with one symmetric separatrix (top panel of Fig.2) with two current sheets. As multiple separatrices can exist in the heliosphere, the presence of multiple current sheets in the vicinity of these separatrices can lead to fragmented structures (e.g., Nickeler et al., 2013;Swisdaketal.,2013).Introducing a non-collisional resistivity, strong electric (DC) fields parallel to the magnetic field can be generated, which can contribute to cosmic ray acceleration as suggested by Nickeler (2005).
Probably over 7 Dr. S. docs open on my computer now, along with others.
Thanks Dr. S.
I’m only looking for an effect/affect of possible accretion.
For the Sun, there is none. On the contrary, the Sun loses 4 million tons every second, carried away by the solar wind.
Make that 10 …
lsvalgaard
May 9, 2016 at 9:43 pm
I’m only looking for an effect/affect of possible accretion.
For the Sun, there is none. On the contrary, the Sun loses 4 million tons every second, carried away by the solar wind.
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Well there is plenty more..available…
Universe’s missing mass found in the cosmic web
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/dec/02/universes-missing-mass-found-in-the-cosmic-web
Dec 2, 2015
Trillions of solar masses
The researchers then established what fraction of the filaments’ total mass the gas represents. To do so, they studied images from the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes of galaxies lying behind Abell 2744, and worked out how much the light from those galaxies is bent by the gravitational pull of the intervening matter. They concluded that the filaments each weigh in at a few tens of trillions of solar masses. In other words, the researchers say, gas makes up roughly 10% of each filament by mass, with most of the rest being dark matter.
According to Eckert, galaxy surveys and numerical simulations show that most of the universe’s galaxies and dark matter lie in the filaments of the cosmic web. As such, he says, if the filaments contain significant amounts of hot gas, then that gas would contain a sizeable proportion of all baryons – about half, he estimates. “Our findings strengthen evidence for a picture of the universe in which a large fraction of the missing baryons resides in the filaments of the cosmic web,” he and his colleagues wrote in a paper published in Nature.
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Today I went off to look at the EEJ Equatorial Electrojet. All that NINO talk, prompted the look back at it.
Now have strong correlation to F10.7 for two solar cycles. Using the new EE index..
Today also discovered a CEJ, Counter Electrojet which develops over E. Africa at times..
Long-term EEJ variations by using the improved EE-index
Akiko Fujimoto, et.al.
http://newserver.stil.bas.bg/SUNGEO/00SGArhiv/SG_v11_No1_2016-pp-37-47.pdf
Abstract: In 2008, International Center for Space Weather Science and Education, Kyushu University (ICSWSE) proposed the EE-index, which is an index to monitor the equatorial geomagnetic phenomena. EE-index has been improved with the development of the MAGnetic Data Acquisition System and the Circum-pan Pacific Magnetometer Network (MAGDAS/CPMN) and the enormous archive of MAGDAS/CPMN data over 10 years since the initial article. Using the improved EE-index, we examined the solar cycle variation of equatorial electrojet (EEJ) by the time series analysis for EUEL (one part of EE-index) at Ancon in Peru and the solar activity from September 18, 1998 to March 31, 2015. We found that the long-term variation of daily EEJ peak intensity has a trend similar to that of F10.7 (the solar activity). The power spectrum of the daily EEJ peak has clearly two dominant peaks throughout the analysis interval: 14.5 days and 180 days (semi-annual). The solar cycle variation of daily EEJ peak correlates well with that of F10.7 (the correlation coefficient 0.99). We conclude that the daily EEJ peak intensity is roughly determined as the summation of the long-period trend of the solar activity resulting from the solar cycle and day-to-day variations caused by various sources such as lunar tides, geometric effects, magnetospheric phenomena and atmospheric phenomena. This work presents the primary evidence for solar cycle variations of EEJ on the long-term study of the EE-index.
Discussion The results of our analysis are as follows:
1. The long-term variation of daily EEJ peak intensity has a trend similar to that of F10.7 (the solar activity). 2. The dominant spectrum powers of daily EEJ peak occur at 14.5 days and 180 days throughout two solar cycles. In contrast, F10.7 has no dominant spectrum peaks throughout the analyzed interval.
3. The solar cycle variation of daily EEJ peak correlates well with that of F10.7 (the correlation coefficient 0.99).
Good night
Well there is plenty more..available
Could be, but not relevant for solar activity.