| cheerfulgreek |
06-24-2010 12:54 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaemonSeid
(Post 1946748)
|
Interesting article, Daemon. I dunno, what's happening with the sunspots. I mean, no one really knows that much about them. There could be a lot of reasons why they're missing. When I read the article it mentioned that the Sun could be shrinking. If they're trying to link the missing sunspots to that, I don't know if I can totally agree. I mean, the Sun is shrinking with or without sunspots. Every star is eventually going to shrink and eventually collapse in on itself. I just don't see much concern about the sunspots, right now. I mean, it's just that the Sun is at an estimated age of about 5 billion years old, and to be quite honest, it has about another 5 billion years of relatively stable energy output. In order for the Sun to start shrinking, that would mean a major change in the hydrogen/helium connection going on inside. We have to look at the fact that the Sun owes its stability to the controlled fusion of hydrogen into helium, just like any other star. The gravity that wants to collapse the Sun is held in balance by the outward gas pressure that the fusion sustains. Also, most of the Sun's atoms are hydrogen, but the ones that really matter are inside the Sun's core. When the core uses all of its hydrogen, all that will be left there is a ball of helium atoms that need an even higher temperature than does hydrogen to fuse into heavier elements. Once this shuts off, the Sun will go out of balance, gravity will win and the inner regions of the Sun will shrink and collapse. I don't believe this really has anything to do with the sunspots. Though, it could, I just don't see how. I do think it's important to keep an eye on the Sun which is both our best friend and our possible worst enemy. If the Sun is shrinking and it just might be, more likely than not, I think we need to be concerned about how that will change our orbit. I say this because orbits in our solar system are influenced by the Sun's loss of about 4 million tons of matter every second from the thermonuclear fusion in its core. It also loses mass from the continuously ejected stream of charged particles. If you ever hear/read astronomers talking about "solar wind", it's these charged particles that they're talking about. I'm just trying to give examples of what's causing the Sun's constant change. It's just that there could be all sorts of reasons for the loss of the sunspots. I mean, I've always thought our Sun looked so much more attractive without the solar acne, anyway.:p |
