#Superheated | Charged Particles

[xtruss]

Scientists May Have Unraveled a Long-Standing Mystery About the Sun

— By Aristos Georgiou | August 24, 2023

Illustration of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft observing the sun. The spacecraft has discovered numerous tiny jets of material escaping from the sun’s atmosphere that could be the source of the solar wind. ESA

Scientists have uncovered the mysterious source of a key solar phenomenon that has long-puzzled experts.

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with contribution from NASA, discovered numerous tiny jets of material escaping from the sun's atmosphere.

Each of the tiny jets lasts between 20-100 seconds and expels plasma—a stage of matter consisting of superheated, charged particles—at a speed of around 224,000 miles per hour. The jets could be a long-sought-after source of the solar wind, according to a study published in the journal Science.

Our sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, constantly spews out a stream of plasma, known as the solar wind, that can reach speeds of more than 1 million miles per hour. This stream, which contains embedded solar magnetic field, expands throughout the entire solar system reaching far beyond the orbit of Pluto before it meets the interstellar medium.

The solar wind and magnetic field inflate a vast "bubble" in the surrounding interstellar material, which is known as the heliosphere.

Variations in the solar wind can produce several space weather phenomena that affect Earth. For example, under certain circumstances, it can interact with the Earth's magnetic field in a way that produces auroras.

Meanwhile, particularly high-speed streams of solar wind can result in geomagnetic storms that have the potential to disrupt navigation systems and produce harmful currents in power grids and pipelines, among other impacts.

"Understanding the solar wind is a key prerequisite for understanding space weather. Results like these are steps towards understanding the dynamic nature of the solar wind," ESA solar physicist Daniel Müller told Newsweek.

The solar wind is a fundamental feature of the sun but understanding exactly how and where it is generated has proven elusive, even though scientists have been studying the question for decades.

But the advanced instrumentation on the Solar Orbiter, considered the most complex scientific laboratory ever sent to study our star, has now shed new light on what drives the generation of the solar wind.

For the latest study, scientists examined data collected by the Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument.

In March 2022, this instrument took images of the sun's south pole, which researchers then analyzed. This revealed numerous short-lived and tiny jets, each one expelling plasma into space.

"We could only detect these tiny jets because of the unprecedented high-resolution, high-cadence images produced by EUI," Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta with the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany, and the principal author on the paper, said in a press release.

The tiny jets that the researchers observed could be seen emanating from a structure on the sun known as a coronal hole. These vast holes are regions where the sun's magnetic field does not turn back down into the star. Instead, the magnetic field stretches out deep into the solar system.

It's been known for decades that some of the solar wind that the sun produces is generated in these regions. (Coronal holes which are most prevalent and stable at the sun's north and south poles, produce solar wind of relatively high speed. The solar wind that emanates from the equatorial regions of the sun, where there are fewer coronal holes, on the other hand, tends to be slower in speed).

But while scientists knew that high-speed solar wind originated from coronal holes, how exactly the plasma was launched remained something of a mystery. Now, the latest findings suggest that the tiny jets may be responsible for launching the plasma that feeds the solar wind as they travel away from the sun.

The study also challenges previous assumptions that the high-speed solar wind from coronal holes emerges in flows that are relatively steady. The researchers found that to a large extent, this flow is not actually uniform but is instead highly intermittent.

"This paper shows that also the fast solar wind is much more dynamic than originally thought," Müller told Newsweek.

The jets that the team discovered produce relatively little energy in the grand scheme of solar activity. For context, the most powerful corona phenomena, known as X-class solar flares, produce around a billion times more energy than so-called nanoflares. But the tiny jets are even a thousand times less energetic than these nanoflares.

Images from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft show tiny jets of material escaping from the sun’s outer atmosphere. The jets show up as dark streaks across the solar surface in this mosaic. EUI TEAM/SOLAR ORBITER/ESA & NASA

The fact that the scientists saw so many of the tiny jets in the recent observations indicates that they are expelling a substantial fraction of the material that can be found in the solar wind.

"I think it's a significant step to find something on the disc that certainly is contributing to the solar wind," David Berghmans, principal investigator for the EUI instrument with the Royal Observatory of Belgium, said in the press release.

But it is possible that there could be other even smaller and more frequent events that could be contributing further.

Future research will be able to shed light on this issue. Currently, the Solar Orbiter is circling the sun close to the star's equator. This means that the tiny jets at the South Pole could only be seen edge-on, making it harder to measure some of their properties.

But as the Solar Orbiter mission continues, it will gradually incline its orbit toward the uncharted polar regions

"In a few years, we will see them from a different perspective than any other telescopes or observatories so that together should help a lot," Müller said in the press release.

The latest findings, alongside other observations being made by the Solar Orbiter, have implications for our understanding of space weather, according to Müller.

'With the Solar Orbiter mission, which is also sampling the solar wind at the location of the spacecraft, we can measure the variability of the solar wind at different distances between the sun and Earth," he told Newsweek. "This will help scientists build better computer models to forecast the solar wind and space weather conditions near Earth based on solar observations."

[beakers-and-telescopes]

How to make plasma in the microwave using a grape (don't)

For those of you who don't want to watch the whole video (I recommend watching it, if only for the guy's extremely blase attitude to fire and poisonous gas in his microwave, here is just the plasma part:

And the crazy thing is, even though people have been making videos of this for over 20 years, scientists didn't actually know why it happens until 2019.

Basically, plasma is what happens to matter when it is superheated enough that electrons start to come loose from the atoms they belong to and just create a soup of charged particles. This Science article explains well how this effect is created by a halved grape connected by a thin strip of skin:

"Water-heavy grapes trap the wavelengths of energy microwave ovens emit because the waves are roughly the same size as the diameter of grapes. That energy starts charging up electrolytes inside the fruit, which then flow from one half of the grape to the other—using the strip of skin like an electrical wire and gaining energy as they go. The current quickly burns through the skin, causing the charged electrolytes to try to jump from one half of the grape to the other, supercharging the surrounding air into a bright flare of plasma—the same light-emitting state of matter responsible for the sun's rays and fluorescent lighting."

You can see in these energy diagrams of the microwaved grapes that when the grape halves are moved closer together, alllllll of the energy that is normally distributed throughout the two grape halves condenses down into an extremely small area between them to form a hotspot of radiation. The energy of this area is so great that it can heat the surrounding gas enough to turn it into plasma.

All this to say that this is a super cool quirk of science that you definitely should NOT try at home (the scientists doing the experiment to find out why this happened destroyed 12 different microwaves in the process lol)

[helix-enterprises117]

Halo Reloaded: Sparring Session

In the vast, echoic chamber of the Spartan training facility, two titans of human engineering collided in a symphony of raw power and unyielding spirit. Vannak-134 and Fred-104, embodiments of human potential unleashed, engaged in a battle that blurred the lines between myth and reality. The air crackled with the energy of their movements, charged particles dancing like fireflies caught in a maelstrom. Each punch thrown by Vannak was a thunderbolt, his fists trailing comet tails of light, the force of his blows causing the very foundations of the arena to tremble. Fred, a whirlwind of motion, responded with strikes that carved arcs of brilliance through the air, his speed creating afterimages that painted the room with strokes of vibrant energy. The clash of their fists generated shockwaves, sending ripples through the air that shattered the indestructible glass of the observation windows, turning them into showers of glittering dust that danced in the chaotic light. The ground beneath them cracked and groaned, a testament to the unfathomable power at play, as if the earth itself was protesting the fury unleashed upon it.Vannak, channeling the strength of a raging storm, launched himself at Fred with the force of a meteor. The air screamed in his wake, superheated by his passage. Fred met his assault with the grace of a tempest, his counterattack a burst of kinetic energy that lit the arena with a blinding flash, the impact resonating like the birth cry of a new star. For a moment, reality itself seemed to warp, the fabric of space straining under the weight of their confrontation. They were more than soldiers; they were avatars of destruction, their battle a symphony composed by the gods of war. As they fought, their fists and feet moving faster than the human eye could follow, they became blurs of motion, their strikes igniting the air with explosive bursts of light. The arena, designed to withstand the might of the most advanced weaponry, buckled and strained, groans of tortured metal filling the air as if the building itself was alive and crying out in pain.And then, in a final act of mutual defiance, they unleashed upon each other the sum total of their strength. Time seemed to slow, the universe holding its breath as two warriors, the epitome of Spartan might, collided in a cataclysmic explosion of light and power. The shockwave of their impact sent ripples across the fabric of reality, a sonic boom that shattered the silence of the cosmos. They fell, not as mere men, but as fallen stars, their bodies impacting the ground with the weight of collapsing mountains. The arena lay in ruins around them, a testament to the ferocity of their duel.Lying amid the wreckage, their chests heaving with the effort of titans, they shared a glance that spoke of battles fought and yet to come."...Truce?" Fred slurred, barely cherent. "...Truce," Vannak agreed, his voice a rumble from the depths of the earth, acknowledging the end of their epic confrontation. In the aftermath of their battle, a silence fell, profound and all-encompassing. It was the quiet of legends born, of myths made manifest. Fred and Vannak, brothers in arms, lay amidst the destruction they had wrought, their spirits unbroken, their wills indomitable. In that moment, they were more than Spartans; they were the very essence of war made flesh.

@ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask

@mrtobenamedlater

@authortobenamedlater

@asimplesimpsimping

@biomecharnotaurus

@killer-orca-cosplay

[ausetkmt]

Big Think: How plants can perform feats of quantum mechanics

It is spring now in the Northern Hemisphere, and the world has greened around us. Outside my window, trees are filled with leaves that act as miniature factories, collecting sunlight and converting it into food. We know this basic transaction takes place, but how does photosynthesis really happen? 

During photosynthesis, plants utilize quantum mechanical processes. In an attempt to understand how plants do this, scientists at the University of Chicago recently modeled the workings of leaves at the molecular level. They were blown away by what they saw. It turns out that plants act like a strange, fifth state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Even stranger is that these condensates are typically found at temperatures near absolute zero. The fact that they are all around us on a normal, temperate spring day is a real surprise.

States of low energy

The three most common states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas. When either pressure or heat is added or removed, a material can shift between these states. We often hear that plasma is the fourth state of matter. In a plasma, atoms break down into a soup of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. This typically occurs when a material is super-heated. The Sun, for example, is mostly a big ball of super-hot plasma. 

If matter can be superheated, it can also be supercooled, causing particles to fall into very low energy states. Understanding what happens next requires some knowledge of particle physics.

There are two main types of particles, bosons, and fermions, and what differentiates them is a property called spin — a weird, quantum-mechanical characteristic that relates to the particle’s angular momentum. Bosons are particles with integer spin (0, 1, 2, etc), while fermions have a half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, etc). This property is described by the spin-statistics theorem, and it means that if you swap two bosons, you will retain the same wave function. You cannot do the same for fermions. 

In a Bose-Einstein condensate, the bosons within a material have such low energy that they all occupy the same state, acting as a single particle. This allows quantum properties to be seen on a macroscopic scale. A Bose-Einstein condensate was created in a lab for the first time in 1995, at a temperature of a mere 170 nanokelvin. 

Quantum Photosynthesis

Now, let’s look at what happens in a typical leaf during photosynthesis. 

Plants need three basic ingredients to make their own food — carbon dioxide, water, and light. A pigment called chlorophyll absorbs energy from light at red and blue wavelengths. It reflects light at other wavelengths, which makes the plant look green. 

At a molecular level, things get even more interesting. Absorbed light excites an electron within a chromophore, the part of a molecule that determines its reflection or absorption of light. This kicks off a series of chain reactions that end up producing sugars for the plant. Using computer modeling, the researchers at the University of Chicago examined what occurs in green sulfur bacteria, a photosynthetic microbe. 

Light excites an electron. Now the electron and the empty space it left behind, called a hole, act together as a boson. This electron-hole pair is called an exciton. The exciton travels to deliver energy to another location, where sugars are created for the organism.

“Chromophores … can pass energy between them in the form of excitons to a reaction center where energy can be used, kind of like a group of people passing a ball to a goal,” Anna Schouten, the study’s lead author, explained to Big Think.  

The scientists discovered that the paths of the excitons within localized areas resembled those seen within an exciton condensate — a Bose-Einstein condensate made of excitons. The challenge with exciton condensates is that the electrons and ions tend to recombine quickly. Once this happens the exciton vanishes, often before a condensate can form. 

These condensates are remarkably difficult to create in the lab, yet here they were, right in front of the scientists’ eyes, in a messy organism at room temperature. By forming a condensate, the excitons formed one single quantum state. In essence, they were acting like a single particle. This forms a superfluid — a fluid with zero viscosity and zero friction — allowing energy to flow freely between chromophores.

Their results were published in PRX Energy. 

Messy Conditions

Excitons normally decay quickly, and when they do, they can no longer transfer energy. To give them a longer lifetime, they typically need to be very cold. In fact, exciton condensates have never been seen above temperatures of 100 Kelvin, which is a frosty negative-173 degrees Celsius. This is why it is so surprising to see this behavior in a messy, real-world system at normal temperatures. 

So what’s going on here? Just another way that nature is constantly surprising us.

“Photosynthesis works at normal temperatures because nature has to work at normal temperatures in order to survive, so the process evolved to do that,” says Schouten.

In the future, room-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates may have practical applications. Since they act as a single atom, Bose-Einstein condensates may give us insight into quantum properties that would be difficult to observe at the atomic level. They also have applications for gyroscopes, atom lasers, high-precision sensors of time, gravity, or magnetism, and higher levels of energy efficiency and transfer. 

[cpirits]

( 🌱🔥💦 — LIST A POKÉMON MOVE THAT APPLIES TO YOUR MUSE FOR EACH TYPE ! )

-- ROUGA --

( I looked hrough the WHOLE list for all these )

[grass]

LEECH SEED: Plants a seed on the target Pokémon.

STRENGTH SAP: The user restores its HP by the same amount as the target's Attack stat.

[fire]

BURNING JEALOUSY: The user attacks with energy from jealousy.

RAGING FURY: The user rampages and spews vicious flames to inflict damage on the target, then becomes fixated on using this move.

BITTER BLADE: The user focuses its bitter feelings toward the world of the living into a slashing attack.

[water]

STEAM ERUPTION: The user immerses the target in superheated steam.

SURGING STRIKES: The user, having mastered the Water style, strikes the target with a flowing motion three times in a row.

[electric]

WILD CHARGE: The user shrouds itself in electricity and smashes into its target.

IRON DELUGE: The user disperses electrically charged particles, which changes Normal-type moves to Electric-type moves.

OVERDRIVE: The user attacks opposing Pokémon by twanging a guitar or bass guitar, causing a huge echo and strong vibration.

PLASMA FISTS: The user attacks with electrically charged fists. This move changes Normal-type moves to Electric-type moves.

EERIE IMPULSE: The user's body generates an eerie impulse. Exposing the target to it harshly lowers the target's Sp. Atk stat.

[normal]

VISE GRIP: The target is gripped and injured.

GUILLOTINE: A single-hit knockout attack.

ROAR: A terrifying roar that drives wild Pokémon away.

DISABLE: A technique that disables one of the target's moves.

HOWL: Howls to raise the spirit and boosts Attack.

PSYCHE UP: Self-hypnosis move that copies the foe's stats changes, then applies them to the user.

ENDURE: Always leaves the user with at least one HP.

CHIP AWAY: Looking for an opening, the user strikes continually.

LASER FOCUS: The user concentrates intensely.

MULTI ATTACK: Cloaking itself in high energy, the user slams into the target.

RAGING BULL: The user performs a tackle like a raging bull.

RAGE: A non-stop attack move.

SKULL BASH: In the first turn, the attacker tucks in its head. The next turn, it head-butts at full steam.

DIZZY PUNCH: The punch is relatively strong and highly accurate.

[flying]

SKY ATTACK: Energy is stored in the first turn, then fired the next turn.

OBLIVION WING: The user absorbs its target's HP. The user's HP is restored by over half of the damage taken by the target.

ACROBATICS: The user nimbly strikes the target.

AEROBLAST: A powerful Flying-type attack. It often becomes a critical hit.

BLEAKWIND STORM: The user attacks with savagely cold winds that cause both body and spirit to tremble. This may also leave the target with frostbite.

[ice]

AURORA VEIL: This move reduces damage from physical and special moves for five turns. This can be used only in a hailstorm.

CHILLY RECEPTION: The user tells a chillingly bad joke before switching places with a party Pokémon in waiting.

ICE BURN: On the second turn, an ultracold, freezing wind surrounds the target.

[ghost]

SPECTRAL THIEF: The user hides in the target's shadow, steals the target's stat boosts, and then attacks.

BITTER MALICE: The user attacks its target with spine-chilling resentment.

RAGE FIST: The user converts its rage into energy to attack.

[bug]

ATTACK ORDER: The user calls out its underlings to pummel the foe.

DEFEND ORDER: The user calls out its underlings to make a living shield.

RAGE POWDER: The user scatters a cloud of irritating powder to draw attention to itself.

LUNGE: The user makes a lunge at the target, attacking with full force.

POUNCE: The user attacks by pouncing on the target.

[poison]

ACID ARMOR: Melts the user's body for protection.

DIRE CLAW: The user lashes out at the target with ruinous claws, aiming to land a critical hit.

VENOM DRENCH: Opposing Pokémon are drenched in an odd poisonous liquid.

[rock]

ROCK WRECKER: The user launches a huge boulder at the foe to attack.

HEAD SMASH: The user delivers a life-endangering headbutt at full power.

ROCK THROW: As the name implies, a huge boulder is dropped on the target.

[ground]

HIGH HORSEPOWER: The user fiercely attacks the target using its entire body.

STOMPING TANTRUM: Driven by frustration, the user attacks the target. If the user's previous move has failed, the power of this move doubles.

HEADLONG RUSH: The user smashes into the target in a full-body tackle

[fighting]

COUNTER:  A retaliation move that back double the damage of a physical attack.

STORM THROW: The user strikes the target with a fierce blow. 

LOW SWEEP: The user attacks the target's legs swiftly.

FINAL GAMBIT: The user risks everything to attack its target.

NO RETREAT: This move raises all the user's stats but prevents the user from switching out or fleeing.

HIGH JUMP KICK: Stronger than a Jump Kick. If it misses, the attacker sustains 1/8 damage it should have caused.

[psychic]

ZEN HEADBUTT: The user focuses its willpower to its head and rams the foe.

IMPRISON: Prevents foes from using moves known by the user.

STORED POWER: The user attacks the target with stored power. 

PSYCHIC FANGS: The user bites the target with its psychic capabilities.

AGILITY: A special technique that greatly boosts the user's Speed. Can normally be used up to three times.

BARRIER: Instantly forms a barrier between the user and the opponent.

[steel]

DOOM DESIRE: Summons strong sunlight to attack 2 turns later.

IRON HEAD: The foe slams the target with its steel-hard head.

HEAVY SLAM: The user slams into the target with its heavy body.

[dark]

SHADOW SNEAK: The user extends its shadow and attacks the foe from behind.

BEAT UP: The user's fellow party Pokémon appear to pummel the target.

PURSUIT: It inflicts major damage if the target switches out in the same turn.

TORMENT: Torments the foe and stops successive use of a move.

NASTY PLOT: The user stimulates its brain by thinking bad thoughts.

PUNISHMENT: This attack's power increases the more the foe has powered up with stat changes.

HONE CLAWS: The user sharpens its claws to boost its Attack stat and accuracy.

FOUL PLAY: The user turns the target's power against it. 

NIGHT DAZE: The user lets loose a pitch-black shock wave at its target.

DARKEST LARIAT: The user swings both arms and hits the target.

THROAT CHOP: The user attacks the target's throat, and the resultant suffering prevents the target from using moves that emit sound for two turns.

BRUTAL SWING: The user swings its body around violently to inflict damage on everything in its vicinity.

OBSTRUCT: This move enables the user to protect itself from all attacks.

LASH OUT: The user lashes out to vent its frustration toward the target.

WICKED BLOW: The user, having mastered the Dark style, strikes the target with a fierce blow.

FAINT ATTACK: The move catches the opponent off guard, so it never misses.

[dragon]

OUTRAGE: The user rampages and attacks for two to three turns.

DRAGON DANCE: A mystical dance that ups Attack and Speed.

CLANGOROUS SOUL: The user raises all its stats by using some of its HP.

[fairy]

PLAY ROUGH: he user plays rough with the target and attacks it.

SPIRIT BREAK: The user attacks the target with so much force that it could break the target's spirit.

Yoinked from@waterlord

[laurazukerman-blog]

Bubble Chambers

A bubble chamber is a device used in particle physics to detect electrically charged particles. It was invented in 1952 by Donald A. Glaser, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960 for this invention[1][3]. The chamber is filled with a superheated transparent liquid, commonly liquid hydrogen, which is maintained just below its boiling point. When charged particles pass through this…

[ilearnedthistodaysblog]

#1061 What noise would the sun make?

What noise would the sun make? The sun doesn’t make a sound in the conventional sense because there is no air for the sound waves to travel through. Sound is a pressure wave that moves through a medium. The energy is passed from molecule to molecule until it runs out and the sound fades away. Sound travels at different speeds through different mediums and generally, the denser the material, the faster the speed of sound. If a material is dense, the molecules are close together and it is easier for the energy to get passed from molecule to molecule. I say generally because often dense materials have heavier molecules and it is harder for them to pass the sound energy on than lighter molecules. That is why gold is denser than aluminium but the speed of sound in aluminium is twice as fast as that of gold, 6320 m/s. On the other side, the less dense a medium is, the slower the speed of sound. Air is less dense than water, so the speed of sound in air is slower. Because you need a medium for sound to travel through, that is why there is no sound from the sun and no sound in space. All of the sound on our planet cannot travel much further than about 160 km up because the air becomes so thin that there are not enough particles to carry the energy on. This is roughly where space starts. However, space is not a complete vacuum. It is a lot less dense than our atmosphere, but it is not a complete vacuum. There are five particles per cubic centimeter in space near stars and this drops to 0.1 per cubic centimeter in open space, and sometimes even lower. This is not enough to transmit sound, which is why there is no sound in space. On Earth there are roughly 27,000,000,000,000,000,000 (27 quintillion – if you are interested) particles per cubic centimeter. So, the sound doesn’t make any sound that we can hear, but that doesn’t mean the sun is silent. The sun has an atmosphere and, just like ours here on Earth, sound can be transmitted through that medium. The sun’s atmosphere is approximately 3,000 km thick, and sound is probably transmitted around this. If you could somehow get into the sun’s atmosphere and not be burned to nothing in nanoseconds, the sound of the sun would kill you. The sound is produced by the convection of heat from inside the sun. Superheated gases inside the sun rise up towards the surface. When they reach the surface, they form something called a granule, which is where the top of the gas spreads out. From a telescope, they cover the surface of the sun and look like grains of rice or granules of sugar, hence the name. Each granule is about the size of France. When they reach the surface, they spread out, release their heat, and sink back down to be replaced by the next granule. This process takes about 5 minutes and there are about a million of them happening at the same time. This heat energy produces sound as well. A lot of the sound is reflected back down into the sun, but some of it gets out.  Astronomers have calculated that the sun produces tens of thousands of watts of sound power for every square meter, which is about 100 times louder than a concert speaker. If you could get close enough to hear it, you wouldn’t last long enough to hear it. There would be other sounds on the surface of the sun as well, assuming you are still standing there. These would be produced by the winds that blow off the surface of the sun. Electrically charged plasma flies off the surface of the sun and heads out into space at speeds of over half a million km per second. These winds would make an enormous sound as well, that would also destroy you. This sound can’t get to Earth because sound cannot travel through space, but, if it could, astronomers have calculated that the sound would be about 100 decibels after it had travelled 150,000,000 km from the sun. That is about the same as a chainsaw, a motorbike, or a loud concert speaker. And that noise would be constant for whatever part of the Earth was in sunlight. The sound would also bounce around our atmosphere, and you would be able to hear it at night as well. It would make it hard for us to go about our life here. In fact, we probably wouldn’t have evolved to rely on hearing. And this is what I learned today. Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sun-301599/ Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacoustic_zone https://www.astronomy.com/science/is-there-any-sound-in-space-an-astronomer-explains/ https://www.acousticalsurfaces.com/blog/acoustics-education/speed-of-sound/ https://www.nde-ed.org/Physics/Sound/speedinmaterials.xhtml https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/does-the-sun-make-a-sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-zdmg_Dno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcuZD0A7RwM https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1601psf/how_loud_is_the_sun/ https://www.astronomy.com/observing/what-would-the-sun-sound-like/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/is-there-any-sound-in-space-an-astronomer-explains/ https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/151995/how-close-to-the-sun-would-you-have-to-be-to-hear-it https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/12854/how-loud-would-the-sun-be/12856#12856 https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/astronomybc/chapter/15-1-the-structure-and-composition-of-the-sun/ https://bosshorn.com/blogs/blog/how-loud-is-100-db https://www.astronomy.com/observing/you-can-listen-to-the-solar-wind-thanks-to-nasas-parker-solar-probe/ Read the full article

[libraryofcirclaria]

What is "Void"?

Library of Circlaria

Blog Posts

Basic Definition

"Void" is a byproduct from the hubstone industry serving as an ideal lighter-than-air substance in numerous industries.

Context

There are numerous hubstone structures throughout the Circlarian Realm each of which contains two components: the core and the web. In Combria, the core is mostly spherical and 100 feet in diameter while the web, made of shale, covers most of the province of Combria. This is just one example of a core-and-web structure, with many others bearing wildly different appearances and size proportions. But for the sake of explaining "void," focus will be given on the Combria structure.

Combria has one of the largest hubstone energy production structures in the world, and begins the process by extracting webstone shale in the form of gas and pipelining it to the Central Hubstone Energy Generation Terminal in Jestopole. There, the shale gas is ignited and superheats the Core in the Central Hubstone Core Chamber. Adapters attached to the Core then conduct the resulting electricity produced to charge hubstone batteries of numerous sizes serving a variety of purposes including the powering of homes and businesses, as well as the powering of numerous appliances.

The Core-superheating process creates three byproducts. The first of which is waste-sludge, a mixture of spent hubstone and water. The second byproduct is electricity, which is produced when the spellfire particles from the Core are split into charged particles and uncharged anti-particles. It is obviously the charged particles that release the energy in the form of electricity. These charged particles are unstable, meaning that once they have served their purpose, the energy released disperses accordingly throughout its immediate environment while the resulting shell of the former charged particle attracts to and integrates with other forms of matter.

"Void"

The third byproduct is the uncharged anti-particles, a large amount of which constitute what is called "void." The reason "void" floats is because it repels every other particle except for charged spellfire particles. As a result, "void" rises up, seeking equilibrium above the atmosphere, where there is no air pressure, as there is no matter to repel there.

This had been considered a waste product until engineers in Combria in the late 1000s, early 1100s, found a method to contain it. Since then, "void" has been considered a valuable commodity, being able to provide better buoyancy than even hydrogen or helium. Thus, "void" was paramount in the development of modern airships in the centuries to come, and, since the obsoletion of airships, has served as an important component in altitude control for gyroplanes.

[etes-secrecy-post]

Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

#Onthisday: Jun 20th, 2014

Title: Cuteness Member - Kururin

I really missed playing Kuru Kuru Kururin and Kururin Paradise on my Visual Boy Advance emulator (of GBA), since I was in 15 years old (2008-09). 🐤🚁🧩🎮 Yeah, I'm having a good time playing two Kururin games, but I didn't finished due to difficulty. 😅 But, in my reunion of playing VBA, I've finally done playing and finished for over 6 years. Also, I've draw him, too, on several occasions. 😊📝🖌️

But anyways, this is my considered of REMAKING Kururin from Kuru kuru Kururin series on Nintendo. 🐤🚁 So, he's now a Cuteness Member, with his armored "Zephyranthes" & the "Full Burnern" pack! 😁

Zephyranthes Kururin Came from the: RX-78GP01 Gundam GP01 "Zephyranthes"

Armament(s):

• A.E.Blash XBR-L-83/Du.02 Beam Saber Made by AE Blash, a subsidiary of Anaheim Electronics. A pair were stored on the sides of the backpack. The beam saber produces high-energy Minovsky particles to form a blade-shaped I-field filled with superheated plasma that creates a deadly cutting blade. It is an effective weapon for close-quarters combat.

• BOWA XBR-M-82A-05H beam rifle w/ Mounted "Jutte" This is the standard rifle for the armored Zephyranthes, power rated at 1.5MW, charged by replaceable e-caps. This is the first rifle applying a new technology "e-pacs", which is a replaceable container of mega-particles, able to let CD armor change the e-pac in the battle when running off ammunition of the beam rifle. The beam jitte attached to the Zephyranthes' beam rifle is a specialized beam saber designed to catch enemy beam sabers, allowing to quickly counter when there is no time to draw out his main beam saber. Named after a specialized weapon used by Japanese police in the Edo period, the Jutte was a small beam saber located under the barrel of the beam rifle. This allowed the GP01 to defend itself against enemy melee weapons when holding the beam rifle.

• HFW-GMG-MG79-90mm Machine Gun The bullpup machine gun is a simple shell-firing machine gun that is based on older technologies, making it a weapon that can be cheaply produced and can be used by just about any CD armor.

• RX-VSh-023F/S-04712 Shield As with most other CD armors, the Zephyranthes carries a single physical shield for defense on its left arm. 2 e-pacs could be stored in the shield. It can withstand several direct beam hits. When not used, the top of the shield retracts to reduce inertia.

• BLASH HB-L-07/N-STD Hyper Bazooka Technically a large rocket launcher, it fires 360mm missiles to attack targets at long range. Also used by the armored GM Type C.

• Missile Launcher A hand-carried weapon originally used by the armored RAG-79 Aqua GM for amphibious combat, it contained a set of missile launchers and two large torpedoes.

Special Feature(s):

• Chobham Armor The Chobham armor was a series of add-on heavy armor plates attached to the body of the GP01. Though it enhanced the GP01's defensive capabilities, it weighs down the suit tremendously.

• Aqua Equipment The GP01 could be equipped with the Aqua equipment for combat underwater. With this equipment, the GP01 is outfitted with the shoulder and calf hydrojet units from the armored RAG-79 Aqua GM along with a new hydrojet-equipped backpack. The shoulder units each contain four torpedo pods, and the CD armor also uses the same handheld missile launcher as the Aqua GM.

Zephyrantes KururIn "Full Burnern" Came from the: RX-78GP01-Fb Gundam "Zephyranthes" Full Burnern

Armament(s):

• A.E.Blash·XBR-L-83d/Du.02 Beam Saber

• BOWA XBR-M-82A-05H beam rifle w/ Mounted "Jutte"

• HFW-GMG-MG79-90mm Machine Gun

• RX·VSh-023F/S-04712 Shield

• Blash XBR-L-83d Experimental Beam Rifle A highly inaccurate weapon, and is only used once in combat due to the unavailability of a standard beam rifle.

Kururin - Kururin Series © Nintendo ® / EIGHTING Armors (Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory) - Gundam Series © SUNRISE, Sotsu

[spacenutspod]

We live with a star that sends out flares powerful enough to disrupt things here on Earth. Telecommunications, power grids, even life itself, are affected by strong solar activity. But, the Sun’s testy outbursts are almost nothing compared to the superflares emitted by other stars. Why do flares happen? And what’s going on at distant stars to ramp up the power of their flares? The answer sounds simple: it’s physics. Or, to be more accurate, solar and stellar physics. Essentially, a flare is a release of magnetic energy from an active region on a star. On the Sun, we see that kind of activity connected to sunspot groups, which have strong magnetic field lines. Stored magnetic energy accumulates, and eventually the lines “snap” and release that energy. It accelerates charged particles in the solar plasma and sends a burst of electromagnetic radiation out to space. Video sequence of a solar loop, taken using Solar Dynamics Observatory. This shows an example of “coronal rain” of superheated plasma showering down from the loop to the surface of the Sun. Courtesy: NASA/SDO. Explaining Supeflares at Other Stars The same sequence of events happens on other stars. Other stars have spots, although the ones we see from Earth are generally much larger than the Sun’s. In some cases, starspots can cover up to a third of a star’s “surface”, with attached magnetic fields. It’s no surprise, then, that those stars would also generate flares. An artist’s conception of what star spots look like on a superflare star. Courtesy Subaru Telescope. Scientists usually refer to those outbursts as stellar flares. Some stars are active enough to produce “super flares”, which are generally anywhere from 100 to 10,000 times brighter than flares from the Sun. Superflaring stars have stronger magnetic fields than the Sun, which accounts for their brighter activity. Interestingly, some of those flares are accompanied by an unexpected flare of brightness, which is then followed by a less-intense, longer flare. Scientists wanted to know why this interesting “hiccup” in the flares occurs in superflares. So, a team led by postdoctoral researcher Kai Yang and associate professor Xudong Sun of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy looked to the Sun to create a useful model of the phenomenon. They then looked at light curves of stars in data from the Kepler and TESS telescopes to look for a peculiar “peak-bump” hiccup in the output of light. “By applying what we’ve learned about the Sun to other, cooler stars, we were able to identify the physics driving these flares, even though we could never see them directly,” said Yang. “The changing brightness of these stars over time actually helped us “see” these flares that are really far too small to observe directly.” Modeling the Outbursts It’s impossible to see the phenomena that produce the “peak-bump” hiccups at other stars. So, Yang and the team looked at something that forms on the Sun all the time: coronal loops. Originally, astronomers suspected that the visible light from flares on other stars (and the Sun) came from the lower layers of the stellar atmosphere. They get heated by superheated particles that get energized by magnetic outbursts (called “reconnection”) and rain down from the corona. The reconnection process involves large loops of magnetized plasma that stretch out from the solar surface into the corona. They break and then reconnect. That releases a lot of energy in a very short amount of time. The process superheats the plasma that energizes the flare activity. The team at Hawai’i asked if the same process could produce that peak-bump hiccup they saw at other stars. Taking solar data and the observations from TESS and Kepler, Yang adapted a fluid simulation used to create models of solar loops. He scaled it up and found that the large energy from a flare pumps a lot of mass into the loops. That creates a dense, visible-light emission at the beginning of the flare, very much like the peak-bump scenario. The model Yang and the team created replicates the events on the Sun and may very well explain the flares seen at other stars, particularly in the TESS data. Further studies and observations should focus on the timing and placement of these flares. The team points out that more extreme ultraviolet observations could benefit their understanding of the underlying physics of superflares. Superflares and Life Life on planets around stars with superflares would be interesting, to say the least. The most active superflare stars are those of M-, K-, and G-type dwarfs. The most powerful superflares would probably wipe out life on nearby planets, or at least drive some severe extinction events. However, stars emitting “not-so-powerful” flares might drive the creation of organic compounds needed for life. Maybe that’s part of the history of life on our planet. Illustration showing the possible surface of TRAPPIST-1f, one of the newly discovered planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. It’s a very active flare star. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech People often ask what would happen if the Sun emitted a superflare. It probably won’t for a long time, but it is certainly capable of emitting very strong ones. Evidence of a strong one more than 14,000 years ago is etched into tree trunks of that time. In more recent times, a strong storm called the Carrington Event disrupted the nascent telegraph communications lines across the world. In 1989, another storm knocked out the power grid across parts of northeastern North America. Scientists study tree rings because they retain a record of climatic events and changes. They also record the Sun’s activity. Image Credit: Rbreidbrown/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA So, while we aren’t “blessed” with a star that sends superflares at us, we are at risk from the Sun’s much smaller activities. Studying its outbursts, as well as those from other stars, gives scientists a good idea of what to expect, and maybe someday, how to predict such storms with greater accuracy. For More Information Physics Behind Unusual Behavior of Stars’ Super Flares DiscoveredA Possible Mechanism for the “Late Phase” in Stellar White-light FlaresLargest Known Solar Storm Struck Earth 14,300 Years Ago The post How Do Superflares Get So Powerful? appeared first on Universe Today.

[docchloroplast]

Plasma Storm: Twin Sister to Ramjet. A candidate Rainmaker, she was involved in an accident when her powers interfered with those of Sunstorm. Her laser core became incompatible with her chassis, requiring a transplantation to Ramjet’s backup body developed during the Cosmic Rust incident.

Fortunately, her powers carried over to her new body; now, not only does she possess her brother’s durability, but she can also still generate plasma by superheating the environment around her. Normally she wields her abilities responsibly, targeting her enemies with the generated charged particles with precision, but occasionally she succumbs to a berserker-like rage and needs a fellow Conehead to calm her down. She doesn’t care much for Starscream.

Ultramarine: When Megatron wanted to expand his ranks early in the war, Ultramarine suggested herself as the template for a series of Seeker clones, much to Starscream’s chagrin. Much like Ultramarine, the resulting Air Warriors are fiercely loyal to the Decepticon cause, and though they possess little in the way of individuality, they do as they’re told, and even adapt to impediments to the strategies developed by Ultramarine, with whom they share a quasi-hive mind.

Ultramarine herself is perhaps one of the most exemplary warriors under Megatron’s command, while in the sky, she delights in acrobatics that disorient the opponent. She has ambitions of greater leadership among the Seekers and even the Decepticons, but she understands that many stand in her way, and as long as she, too, occasionally becomes disoriented from her aerial techniques, she’ll bide her time and continue to proudly aid in universal domination.

[reasoningdaily]

In the first few hundred thousand years after our Universe was born, a primordial hum ripped through a plasma of superheated particles. Scientists are listening in with the hope of gaining new insights about the mysterious force known as dark energy.

Before stars or planets, before black holes and white dwarfs, before even atoms or rays of light, the Universe reverberated with something surprising – sound. This primordial hum moved at more than half the speed of light through a superheated plasma of baryons, photons, and dark matter.

It arose from a tug of war between ancient and powerful fundamental forces generating soundwaves in this electrically charged soup of particles. Then, just a few hundred thousand years into its existence, the plasma disappeared like a morning fog. The Universe fell suddenly, and profoundly silent.

Yet, it is still possible to pick up echos of these first soundwaves that spread out across our early Universe – if you know where to look. The ripples they created in the plasma have left a permanent imprint on the distribution of matter around the Universe. And they are also providing astronomers with clues about one of the deepest mysteries of our Universe today, the mysterious force known as dark energy.

The primordial soundwaves – also known as baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) – formed as the particles in the early Universe began to be pulled together by gravity.

"The gravitational pull of dark matter in the early Universe created 'potential wells,' pulling plasma inward," says Larissa Santos, a professor at the Center for Gravitation and Cosmology at the University of Yangzhou, China. The plasma, however, was so hot that it also created an opposing outward force. "Photons created radiation pressure that fought gravity, and pushed everything back out again. This fight created acoustic oscillations – sound waves."

BAOs burst outward from uncountable potential wells, forming expanding, concentric spheres of sound energy. They crisscrossed each other, sculpting the plasma into dazzlingly complex three-dimensional interference patterns.

Had a human somehow existed in the epoch of "baryon acoustic oscillations" (BAOs), they would have heard nothing. The sounds were around 47 octaves lower than the bottom note on a piano with enormous wavelengths of about 450,000 light years.

This incredibly deep, inaudible rumble travelled through a medium that even our most powerful telescopes is unable to penetrate. The deeper we look into the Universe, the further back into its history we see due to the time it takes for light to reach us. We can only see so far, however, as the electrical charges from unattached protons and electrons in these early stages of the Universe continuously scattered and diffused light, creating an impenetrably random glow. But BAOs created patterns in this medium which rippled outwards, and we can see evidence of these in the Universe today.

The Planck Space Telescope was able to pick up echos of BAOs from the early Universe and scientists have been able to translate them into audible frequencies, in the example below. The hum is composed of a low tone with higher overtones. The whoosing sound that can be heard is an artefact of the processing used to make the sound file.

Sounds of the early Universe

Then, at about the age of 379,000 years old, the Universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to pair up and form the first neutral hydrogen atoms. The plasma disappeared, leaving the Universe suddenly and dramatically transparent to light. At the same moment, the battle between radiation and gravitation ended, BAOs ceased, and the Universe went silent.

The blast of light energy that now spread through the Universe was so powerful that it still jangles radio telescopes and tantalises physicists more than 13 billion years later as a signal known as cosmic microwave background radiation. The "CMB" is the oldest and most detailed visual record of the early Universe. Here too scientists can see a "fossil record" of the Universe's first sounds.

"We see them imprinted on the cosmic microwave background, and also in the large-scale structure of the Universe," says Santos, who is part of a new international radio telescopy project analysing modern echoes of that long-silenced song. "Their signature is found in a small excess in the number of pairs of galaxies separated by a fixed scale of 150 Megaparsecs — around 500 million light years."

You might also like:

The mystery of our expanding Universe

Why time doesn't flow backwards

How supermassive black holes got so big

BAO signatures not only hint at what the early Universe sounded like, but also serve as a ruler for measuring the effects of yet another invisible phenomenon: dark energy.

Dark energy causes the Universe to expand. Its effects are everywhere, yet its nature is unknown. Studying the scale of BAO signatures at different distances from Earth tells a story about how dark energy's effects have changed over the history of the Universe.

"We call it a standard ruler," says Santos. "We have this fixed scale. We can know by how it appears to vary how the Universe was evolving through time."

The ripples created in the primordial plasma led to matter clumping together in ways that can still be seen in the way galaxies and stars are clustered (Credit: Nasa Goddard)

Hydrogen atoms release radiation with a 21-centimetre wavelength – invisible to human eyes, but detectable via radio telescope. This radiation from more distant clouds of hydrogen gets stretched by dark energy, increasing its observed wavelength here on Earth. The further it has travelled, the more stretched out it is.

"You choose a frequency for your radio telescope according to the epoch of the Universe that you want to measure," says Santos. Bingo is designed to map hydrogen distribution between one billion and four billion light years away – relatively close on the cosmic scale of space and time.

Bingo's two towering parabolic mirrors reflect this primordial radiation onto an array of 50 flared wave detectors known as "horns".  The telescope's main moving part is the planet it rests on. The rotating Earth moves the telescope beneath the stars, scanning a strip of sky 15 degrees by 200 degrees.

Using subtle statistical calculations, Santos will analyse its data to locate millions of galaxies, examine their relative distances from one another, and dig deeper into how dark energy affected BAO patterns during that era.

"Bingo will look to the late Universe when dark energy already dominates the expansion. It's very complementary to other experiments," she says.

Many of those other experiments are already planned or underway.

"Hydrogen intensity mapping can in principle measure anything in the Universe between present day and up to the CMB. That is a huge volume to explore," says Cynthia Chiang, a professor of physics who studies hydrogen density at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. "Bingo and other similar experiments look for the gas that lives inside galaxies. It is a tracer for where the matter is."

While instruments attuned to relatively close regions interest Chiang, she also craves answers about the rest of cosmic history.

"I take a very greedy approach to this," she says with a laugh. "I'm putting together an experiment that is tuned to frequencies that correspond to the 'Dark Ages'. That's the period immediately following the formation of the microwave background. We have never accessed any cosmology from this time period because it's very, very hard."

Between 250 and 350 million years elapsed between the "surface of last scattering" when the baryonic plasma gave way to the CMB, and the "cosmic dawn" when the first starlight shone out. BAOs left clouds of hydrogen clumped in wispy striations, liked an ebbing tide leaving ripples behind in the sand.  

Before Chiang can access the 21-centimetre radiation from this era, she needs first to design experiments to filter out more recent signals from our own galaxy that could mask older data.

"This first experiment is not yet going to get at cosmology," she says. "The goal is to map the Milky Way emissions at these frequencies at a very high resolution so that we know what the sky looks like as a first pass. Then, hopefully, we can subtract that off and get to the cosmology.

"As the name suggests, in the Dark Ages, the Universe was a very dark and boring place. The signal you get then is almost a uniform 21-centimetre emission from this wall of hydrogen. But there are faint fluctuations in the brightness that correspond to the over-densities and under-densities. You get tiny cold and hot spots."

She says the CMB is like a still photograph capturing (in amazing detail) a pivotal moment in cosmological evolution. Mapping hydrogen density in the Dark Ages, though, would capture the hundreds of millions of years that immediately followed.

"It's a three-dimensional volume you can probe," says Chiang. "If you can measure the same sort of information as the CMB but reflected in hydrogen instead, you get tremendously more information, and you can potentially constrain cosmological parameters even more. If we get there, that would be amazing. But that's a very, very long road."

Did we get the age of the Universe drastically wrong?

Chiang's planned experiments, alongside the Bingo telescope, add to a growing array of innovative observational instruments laying bare the history of BAOs, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and the invisible dark energy that drives galaxies apart.

"When we measure the sky, we measure everything," says Santos. "CMB, neutral hydrogen, galaxy point-sources, all this kind of stuff. We must be able to recognise what's a cosmological signal and what is everything else."

Santos also hopes BAOs will reveal even more about the Universe's past, piercing the 379,000-year-thick wall of plasma and providing data on the previous fraction of a second – the Universe's "inflationary epoch", during which most cosmologists think space was expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light.

Cosmological inflation is a widely trusted theory of how our Universe got from its tiny, hot, dense, original state to the cosmos we see today. The theory has gone through many incarnations, variations, and simulations. It makes many robust predictions that have been tested and verified, yet there is no direct evidence for it.

"Many, many inflationary theories have been already discarded by our observations," says Santos. "With the measurements we want to see, we can determine which theories agree best with that measurement and go from there."

Baryon acoustic oscillations only existed for a few hundred thousand years, but they helped create — and are helping scientists tell — the story of the invisible Universe from its first moment to its last.

[filled-ma]

Bubble chamber: A vessel filled with a superheated transport liquid used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it

泡箱：素粒子の通った飛跡を可視化する装置。過熱した液体で満たされている。

[earthstory]

Right Time, Right Place: Earth’s Magnetic Poles If you were to list factors crucial to life on Earth—water, oxygen, appropriate temperature—magnetism might not make the list. But it should, because without Earth’s magnetic poles, we probably wouldn’t be here. Magnetic poles may be one of the most important things we never think about it. Let’s meet the two major players in this unique scenario: Earth’s magnetic field and solar winds.

Earth’s magnetic field presents a bit of a mystery at times, but we know its origin has something to do with the iron core. Since the outer core is liquid iron cooling by losing heat, it convects. Convecting, superheated iron under the right conditions can generate a geodynamo —or in simpler words, generate a magnetic field. This magnetic field can be detected anywhere on the planet—thus why a compass points North. Solar winds are not wind in the typical weather sense; they are beams of ions that stream from the sun. Despite the sun’s immensity, its gravity cannot hold on to some of its more highly charged particles. These particles make their way outwards, sometimes at velocities as fast 500 miles per second. What happens when the solar winds encounter our magnetic field? Since the winds are made up of charged particles, they get deflected. The magnetic field creates sort of a safety blanket around Earth (called the magnetosphere) that effectively reroutes the sun’s zippy ions. What would happen if the magnetic field wasn’t there? Again we can look to our planetary neighbors for possible answers. Mars does not have a magnetic field. It also doesn’t have a life-supporting atmosphere. Coincidence? We think not. Many astronomers believe that Mars used to have magnetic poles, but when its core cooled off, the magnetosphere disappeared, along with the atmosphere and any surface water that may have existed. Solar winds would most likely strip the Earth of its atmosphere if the magnetosphere wasn’t blanketing our beloved planet. In 2008, Mars, Earth, and the sun all happened to fortuitously line up, making it an ideal time for a study regarding solar winds and atmospheres. Research found that Mars lost significantly more oxygen due to solar winds than Earth did, thus making us all a little more grateful for those poles (find the study here--http://bit.ly/1SDNBiU). There is, however, a possibility that the story isn’t that simple. Venus doesn’t have magnetic poles, either, yet it’s got the thickest atmosphere in the solar system. There is some research, however, that suggests it’s got some sort of induced magnetic field in its upper atmosphere (more about that here—http://bit.ly/1g1VbCn). Although the connection between magnetosphere, ionosphere, atmosphere and all the other “-spheres” may not be entirely understood, Earth’s magnetic poles appear to be another one of those unique little details that keep us calling it home. -CM Photo (a model of Earth’s magnetic field lines) credit: Dr. Gary A. Glatzmaier http://bit.ly/1Ma18Lo For more information: http://bit.ly/1IBswuK

[spaceexp]

Swarm probes weakening of Earth’s magnetic field

ESA - SWARM Mission logo. May 20, 2020 In an area stretching from Africa to South America, Earth’s magnetic field is gradually weakening. This strange behaviour has geophysicists puzzled and is causing technical disturbances in satellites orbiting Earth. Scientists are using data from ESA’s Swarm constellation to improve our understanding of this area known as the ‘South Atlantic Anomaly.’

Development of the South Atlantic Anomaly

Earth’s magnetic field is vital to life on our planet. It is a complex and dynamic force that protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles from the Sun. The magnetic field is largely generated by an ocean of superheated, swirling liquid iron that makes up the outer core around 3000 km beneath our feet. Acting as a spinning conductor in a bicycle dynamo, it creates electrical currents, which in turn, generate our continuously changing electromagnetic field. This field is far from static and varies both in strength and direction. For example, recent studies have shown that the position of the north magnetic pole is changing rapidly. Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average. A large region of reduced magnetic intensity has developed between Africa and South America and is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.

South Atlantic Anomaly impact radiation

From 1970 to 2020, the minimum field strength in this area has dropped from around 24 000 nanoteslas to 22 000, while at the same time the area of the anomaly has grown and moved westward at a pace of around 20 km per year. Over the past five years, a second centre of minimum intensity has emerged southwest of Africa – indicating that the South Atlantic Anomaly could split up into two separate cells. Earth’s magnetic field is often visualised as a powerful dipolar bar magnet at the centre of the planet, tilted at around 11° to the axis of rotation. However, the growth of the South Atlantic Anomaly indicates that the processes involved in generating the field are far more complex. Simple dipolar models are unable to account for the recent development of the second minimum. Scientists from the Swarm Data, Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC) are using data from ESA’s Swarm satellite constellation to better understand this anomaly. Swarm satellites are designed to identify and precisely measure the different magnetic signals that make up Earth’s magnetic field.

Swarm constellation

Jürgen Matzka, from the German Research Centre for Geosciences, says, “The new, eastern minimum of the South Atlantic Anomaly has appeared over the last decade and in recent years is developing vigorously. We are very lucky to have the Swarm satellites in orbit to investigate the development of the South Atlantic Anomaly. The challenge now is to understand the processes in Earth’s core driving these changes.” It has been speculated whether the current weakening of the field is a sign that Earth is heading for an eminent pole reversal – in which the north and south magnetic poles switch places. Such events have occurred many times throughout the planet’s history and even though we are long overdue by the average rate at which these reversals take place (roughly every 250 000 years), the intensity dip in the South Atlantic occurring now is well within what is considered normal levels of fluctuations. At surface level, the South Atlantic Anomaly presents no cause for alarm. However, satellites and other spacecraft flying through the area are more likely to experience technical malfunctions as the magnetic field is weaker in this region, so charged particles can penetrate the altitudes of low-Earth orbit satellites. The mystery of the origin of the South Atlantic Anomaly has yet to be solved. However, one thing is certain: magnetic field observations from Swarm are providing exciting new insights into the scarcely understood processes of Earth’s interior. Related article: Magnetic north and the elongating blob https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/05/magnetic-north-and-elongating-blob.html Related links: Swarm: http://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm Observing the Earth: http://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth Videos, Image, Text, Credits: ESA/ATG Medialab/Division of Geomagnetism, DTU Space. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

[the-telescope-times]

Swarm Probes Strange Weakening of Earth’s Magnetic Field That Has Geophysicists Puzzled

In an area stretching from Africa to South America, Earth’s magnetic field is gradually weakening. This strange behaviour has geophysicists puzzled and is causing technical disturbances in satellites orbiting Earth. Scientists are using data from ESA’s Swarm constellation to improve our understanding of this area known as the ‘South Atlantic Anomaly.’

Earth’s magnetic field is vital to life on our planet. It is a complex and dynamic force that protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles from the Sun. The magnetic field is largely generated by an ocean of superheated, swirling liquid iron that makes up the outer core around 3000 km beneath our feet. Acting as a spinning conductor in a bicycle dynamo, it creates electrical currents, which in turn, generate our continuously changing electromagnetic field.

This field is far from static and varies both in strength and direction. For example, recent studies have shown that the position of the north magnetic pole is changing rapidly.

Read more/2videos ~ scitechdaily.com