Solar 'Current of Fire' Speeds Up

"Solar 'Current of Fire' Speeds Up
03.12.2010



March 12, 2010: What in the world is the sun up to now?

In today's issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun's Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years."


science.nasa.gov...


I think its quite interesting what we keep finding out about space these days!

This is news!

I understood that the expansion of the universe itself is speeding up, but the sun, too?

This would affect the models they taught us in school, about the stability of our particular sun, its possible lifetime, possible demise, etc.

It would appear that they are not accurate, or only calculated based on the assumption of continued stability in the sun's life and processes.


In the big picture, five years is not long, but perhaps the context of global warming makes it a special type of occurrence, i.e., more significant in terms of what it could mean to earth.

According to Hathaway the speed up of the conveyor belt has been speeding up for the past five years, which would explain, according to him, the Solar minimum we have been experiencing. But the thing is that it was also Hathaway who said a couple years ago that the Sun's conveyor belt was spining at a record crawl..... so which is it?....

and by the way.

A note about "fast": The Great Conveyor Belt is one of the biggest things in the whole solar system and by human standards it moves with massive slowness. "Fast" in this context means 10 to 15 meters per second (20 to 30 miles per hour). A good bicyclist could easily keep up.

From oriiginal article, fast in this context means about 20 to 30 miles per hour.

Another note that needs to be ointed out, remember that the Sun's mass constitute, as far as we know, 98.99% of the mass of the Solar System. Any changes in the Sun, nomatter how small are bound to affect Earth, and all planets, and Moons with an atmosphere, including their climate.