Here Comes The Sun

original post May 26 2010 (http://truemaskedwabbit.multiply.com/journal/item/54)

The sun is finally warming up this northern part of North America decimating the winter’s chilly days, lost flowers planted too early in eagerness and early darkened night times. I’ve always loved the sun since childhood. I’d settle all my dolls into their designated nap time places, although some of the dolls had fur and four legs, nevertheless it was high noon and their nap time and as for me, the time to lie down in the tall grass of my father’s land and once more wonder about the mysteries of the sun. No sooner would I have settled down I could feel the warmth of the sun caress my face in a gentle greeting and kisses kissed by angels, I knew very well those were the kisses of angels indeed because my freckles would turn a shade darker across my nose, and this of course was good enough proof for me.

I would hold up my hand against the sun squeezing my fingers tightly together and see the outlines of their bones, nature’s X-Ray machine. But the sun could do so much more. It could sprinkle sparkles across the lake, dancing on the waves like fairy elves beckoning to join them in a cooling splash or even send many different coloured rays on the edges of my mother’s large hallway mirror. I’d check and count the different colours of light with my right eye and then recheck with my left and count again the lights splitting into rainbow colours. My grandfather would at times worry then warn me, to stand in front of a mirror is vain, but I did not notice my own reflection, I saw the wonders of the sun.

Sunny Sunday mornings after church, my parents would take us kids for a bike ride on the country roads. While my mother would be on the lookout for pine cones along the forest floor, I’d watch the sun follow us through the trees and climb hills with us. Occasionally I’d get so absorbed by the sun’s light bouncing off and scattering in many directions of a granite rock along the way that I’d run my bike’s front wheel into my father’s rear wheel and send us both tumbling. He’d collect himself and sternly remind me to stay focused to which I’d reply; “I was. Just not in your direction.” He’d only nod and then smile to himself and I was sure the sun was smiling too.

Today, much older now, I see the sun with different eyes, the understanding of its physics, the workings of its beginning either to go out in a glory or fizzle quietly into an afterglow when its journey has reached its end. Just the same it captures all my senses even still to this day.

A neutron star, once a star eight times more massive than ours, collapses under its own gravity blasting out its outer skins in a super nova and now has become a compact spinning star in the night skies. Any planet with even the simplest single celled life form nearby would experience the energies of highs and lows by this spinning disco ball.

Or a star ten times or more massive than our sun blasts its final life outward into a super nova, then collapses in on itself but the neutron star continues to collapse where its massive weight creates a hole in space and time, known as a black hole and the mystery begins all over again. But super novas also leave a legacy behind when massive stars die. They create a stellar nursery, another solar system, another sun.

We love to observe the sun, whether we have very expensive telescopes or just a simple mirror to reflect the sun onto a sheet of paper and watch the sunspots, sunflares,solar eclipses and if you’re lucky that day even a coronal mass ejection. Since the beginning of pre-historic man and his awareness of this life giving globe in our skies, man always marvelled at this wonder that gives us warmth, makes trees, shrubberies and flowers come to life and from those very early observations many stories evolved, known today as myths.

Just for a change of pace here are some known myths among many.

Egyptian:

"Dead Man Standing in Barge of the Sun Worshipping..."

Ra (or Re) was known as the sun-god and the creator in ancient Egypt. He took on many forms, each depending on where he was. Usually Ra was portrayed with a hawk head, wearing a fiery disk like the Sun on his head. In the Underworld, the god took the form of a ram-head.

Ra was the creator of our world. In the beginning of time, an egg rose from the water. Once out of his shell, Ra had two children who became the atmosphere and clouds. They in turn had more children, Geb and Nut, who became the Earth and the stars. They in turn had two sons, Seth and Osiris, the father of Horus.

Ra cried one day, and humans were made from his tears. He also created the four seasons for the Nile, a very important river in Egypt. Ra combines with Horus to form Ra-Harakhte, god of the Sun and the heavens.

Greek:

Picture: "Parnasus Apollo" by Raphael

Image courtesy of Planet Art.

In Greek mythology, Apollo was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Leto (Letona). He was the twin brother of the goddess Artemis. He was the god of the Sun, logic, and reason, and was also a fine musician and healer.

Leto travelled all over Greece to find a place to give birth to Apollo. She finally came upon an island named Delos. The island agreed to allow the birth of Apollo if he in turn founded a temple on the island. Leto agreed, and when Apollo grew up, he changed Delos into a beautiful island.

Apollo was known as the god who could foretell the future. His most famous sacred place was at Delphi, site of the Oracle of Delphi.

Roman:

Sandro Botticelli: "Primavera" (1478). "Primavera" in Italian means "Spring." In this wonderfull painting by Botticelli, Mercury is depicted at far left. At the center is Venus, on Venus'left the three Graces, and on her right the goddess Flora. At the far right of the painting is the wind god Zephir pursuing the nymph Chloris. Zephir's breath cause the nymph to sprout flowers from her mouth.

Image courtesy of Planet Art.

The Romans also believed in Apollo as the god of light, music, and healing.

Celts:

Artist's image of Lugh, the Sun god.

Nate Proulx, Windows to the Universe Original

For the Celts, who lived in central Europe, Lugh was a Sun god. The underworld god Balor was his grandfather. Balor was the leader of the Fomorii. The Fomorii were evil people that lived in the underworld.

According to a prophecy, Balor was to be killed by a grandson. To prevent the happening of the prophecy, Balor tried to kill his grandson, but Lugh miraculously survived. Lugh was secretly raised by the god of the sea ,Manannan, and became an expert warrior.

When he reached manhood, he joined the peoples of the goddess Dana, named the Tuatha De Danaan, to help them in their struggle against the Fomorii and Balor. Balor had an evil eye capable of killing whomever looked at it. Lugh threw a magic stone ball into Balor's eye, and killed Balor.

Lugh corresponds to the Welsh god Lleu and the Gallic Lugos. From Lugh's name derives the names of modern cities such as Lyon, Laon and Leyden. Today, people remember the figure of Lugh with a festival which commemorates the beginning of the harvest in August.

Inca:

Door to enclosure of Sun temple at Machu Picchu, Peru.

Image courtesy of Corel Corporation.

Inti was considered the Sun god and the ancestor of the Incas. Inca people were living in South America in the ancient Peru. In the remains of the city of Machu Picchu, it is possible to see a shadow clock which describes the course of the Sun personified by Inti.

Inti and his wife Pachamama, the Earth goddess, were regarded as benevolent deities. According to an ancient Inca myth, Inti taught his son Manco Capac and his daughter Mama Ocollo the arts of civilization and sent them to the Earth to instruct mankind about what they had learned.

Inti ordered his children to build the Inca capital where a divine golden wedge, they carried with them, would fall to the ground. Incas believed this happened in the city of Cuzco, which has been founded by the Ayar.

Inti is celebrated even today in Peru during the Festival of Inti Raimi in Cuzco.

Hindu:

Surya Temple at Ranakpur, India.

Image courtesy of Corel Corporation

Hinduism is the oldest Indian religion. Hinduism is based on some antique sacred writings and the assimilation of many different cultures and religious beliefs from other peoples. The oldest Hindu writing is the Rig Veda which is a collection of songs and hymns composed over 3,000 years ago. Many are the gods and goddesses described in the sacred Hindu writings.

In Hindu mythology, Surya represents the Sun god. Surya is depicted as a red man with three eyes and four arms, riding in a chariot drawn by seven mares. Surya holds water lilies with two of his hands. With his third hand he encourages his worshipers whom he blesses with his fourth hand. In India, Surya is believed to be a benevolent deity capable of healing sick people. Even today, people place the symbol of the Sun over shops because they think it would bring good fortune.

When Surya married Sanjna, his wife could not bear the intense light and heat. Therefore, she fled into a forest where she transformed herself into a mare to prevent Surya from recognizing her. But Surya soon discovered Sanjna's refuge. He went to the same forest disguised as a horse. Sanjna gave birth to several children, and eventually reunited with her husband.

However, the heat and the light of Surya were so intolerable that Sanjna was always exhausted doing her domestic duties. Finally, Sanjna's father decided to help her and trimmed Surya's body reducing his brightness by an eighth. Thus, Sanjna could more easily live close to her husband.

The two STEREO observatories launched October 2006 are nearly identical with selective redundancy. The building of the spacecraft bus and the integration of the instruments were done by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

The two solar-powered observatories with 3-axis-stabilization, each had a mass at launch of approximately 1,364 pounds (620 kilograms, including propellant). The spacecraft communicate with the APL-based Mission Operations Center via NASA’s Deep Space Network.

SOHO, the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory, is a project of international collaboration between ESA and NASA to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind.

SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995. The SOHO spacecraft was built in Europe by an industry team led by prime contractor Matra Marconi Space (now EADS Astrium) under overall management by ESA. The twelve instruments on board SOHO were provided by European and American scientists. Nine of the international instrument consortia are led by European Principal Investigators (PI's), three by PI's from the US. Large engineering teams and more than 200 co-investigators from many institutions supported the PI's in the development of the instruments and in the preparation of their operations and data analysis. NASA was responsible for the launch and is now responsible for mission operations. Large radio dishes around the world which form NASA's Deep Space Network are used for data downlink and commanding. Mission control is based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

TRACE, wass launched 02-Apr-1998- a three-axis stabilized spacecraft, uses an instrument provided guide telescope as the fine Sun sensor. The spacecraft must null the peak error to the guide telescope to within 20 arcseconds. The TRACE telescope has an image motion compensation mechanism which can attenuate jitter to about 0.1 arcseconds resolution. The Attitude Control System (ACS) uses three magnetic-torquer coils, one digital Sun sensor, six coarse Sun sensors, four reaction wheels, one three-axis magnetometer, and three two-axis inertial gyros. The ACS uses the spacecraft computer to perform closed loop attitude determination and control. (ESA/NASA)

Wish you all a very good week

Trudi/Wabbit

The Sun does what?

A while back someone had asked me if a supermoon could cause an earthquake which is truly a normal question to ask with all of us being aware of the gravitational pull of the moon and earth causes tides here on earth. What surprised me however was the “as of late” questions coming up now and then if the sun could cause earthquakes and the tectonic plates to move and I was scratching my head. Now that it has come up again I’ve decided to make a video but then I realized I have one already on my YouTube Channel posted in June 2010 and discovered that many YouTube videos are talking about doom and gloom about the sun. I had to check this out.
It seems on YouTube and/or television programmes the “Doomsday Sayers” have picked up on NASA’s speculations that one day a geomagnetic storm and/or super flare could occur …. HOLD IT … WAIT A SEC …. Could and will are two horses of different colour. This has happened five times before in the past 500 years, the first recorded solar storm was in 1859 observed by Richard Carrington (widely acknowledged as one of England's foremost solar astronomers) and we are all still here.
A super coronal mass ejection cannot happen because we have an ordinary parent star. A star would have to be at least ten times more massive for a super CME to occur BUT still it would not cause earthquakes or the tectonic plates to move. It would strip our atmosphere and fry everything on the planet with radiation but the workings of the tectonic plates would continue as always.
What can happen with a geomagnetic storm, solar flare, CME is interrupt communication satellites, fry our electrical power grids and put any space faring ship such as the International Space Station at high risk. That’s it.

The tectonic plates moving is what causes earthquakes. What drives the tectonic plates is the convection belt (or force) driven by the magma in our earth’s core. The core does give us the geomagnetosphere which protects us from all space weather suffice to say there is no gamma ray heading towards us from a Hyper Nova in the vicinity that could have deadly effects on us. The magnetosphere running from north to south poles are at a constant move because the north pole is always on the move, some to several feet per year, eventually there will be a flip but there is no such thing as a sudden flip. It is a gradual and continuous working happening naturally throughout billions of years.

The expert to ask on tectonic plates is my geologist friend, Mike on my friend’s list if you have more questions. To understand the sun further and its working you can click on the link I’ve provided for you. Understanding the Sun
http://truemaskedwabbit.blogspot.com/2011/04/understanding-sun.html
Hope this explains how the sun will not cause our demise or a raptor or the second coming ….

You all have a good day

Trudi/Wabbit

The Sun/Global Warming/Global Dimming

Original posted on http://truemaskedwabbit.multiply.com/journal/item/28 Apr 30, '09

We delight in the warmth of our sun after a long winter or days on end rain. In spring we smile at the first sign of our gardens coming back to life, the return of the migrating birds, the sounds of frogs, toads and crickets and our hearts quicken to examine what else is peaking through the soil. Trees turning from that grey bare haunted appearance to the sprouting of the most beautiful and colourful blossoms.

The Sun is the most powerful source in our solar system. It generates the heat and life that sustains us, without the sun we wouldn’t have life, as we know it, here on earth. But the sun is volatile and dangerous and it’s becoming more dangerous. It will become hotter as it ages, evaporate our oceans, melt the surface of our planet and make any life on earth impossible.

Understanding our sun

The sun’s core is a massive thermo-nuclear reactor. Five million tons of hydrogen fuse into helium every second and temperatures exceed 15mil°C. Under the enormous pressures gases become as dense as solid led. This is Einstein’s famous formula E=mc² pure glowing energy. Every second, almost six hundred million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium, that’s more energy in one second than six billion nuclear power plants would produce in a year.

The incredible journey that photons make from the centre of the sun’s core to reach the earth were created over millions of years ago and some were starting their journey when dinosaurs were still enjoying and reigning master on our earth.

Imagine a Russian doll and when you open it there are still more dolls to open, this is the dynamo of our sun with intricate layers inside. In the sun’s dense core photons zoom around at the speed of light bumping into electrons. As they collide, photons pass on energy or momentum just as one ball hits another one and gives momentum to the second ball. The same as when we were kids in school and during recess we played with marbles, flicking one marble into a bunch of other marbles, watching with anticipation as one gives momentum to the other one where then the other marble bumps into yet another marble and gives momentum to that one and so on. The next obstacle within this Russian doll is the radiative zone; here photons are bounced around by particles of hot hydrogen gas called plasma. They start changing directions in random ways a bit more like in a pinball machine, zigzagging around for years and years and years and years. Some reach the next dynamo of the Russian doll called the convection layer where they are absorbed in rivers of hot searing gas and carried by their currents to the sun’s surface, the photosphere. Here the hot gases cool and release their energy as photons once more. The photons stream into space and traveling at the speed of light to complete the 93mil journey to earth in just eight minutes.

Where did such an enormous powerhouse come from?

Five billion years ago a massive dying star went super nova, where in its death throes a massive shockwave exploded in space. The shockwave collided with a cloud (called molecular cloud also known as a nebula) of dust and gas in our milky way causing it to implode. Within the spinning disk of interstellar gas, immense gravitational forces crushed hydrogen atoms, super heating them. Nuclear fusion began, the sun was born.

The leftovers cooled and became the planets and meteorites that inhabit our solar system, within them were elements that once existed in their parent star, elements that became the building blocks of life on earth.

Our sun is less than half way through its life, it’s been going for four and a half billion years, and it has less than six billion years left to go. Certainly the sun is not the first star in our galaxy and we have to put it into this broader cosmic context to place it right back to the birth of our galaxy in years earlier to understand how it formed with a particular mix of atoms. When our sun was born it formed already contaminated by the debris from early generations of stars. So this has two fascinating implications, it means to ask the question where the atma before came from, why oxygen is common but gold and uranium are rare. We’d have to think about the fate of stars in the remote parts of our galaxy, which died five billion or more years ago, before our sun was born. So in short everything is inter-connected, our galaxy is like a large eco-system (see Pangaea The Battling Elements – the Rock Cycle) birth – destruction –rebirth. Hence, gases are being recycled from one-generation star after another, and if you are a romantic we are all stardust; and if you are less romantic we are the nuclear waste of earlier generation of stars. It all makes sense doesn’t it?

The sun has sustained and captivated humans since they began to populate the earth. Five thousand years ago the Nubians and the Egyptians worshipped the sun as their god. A thousand years ago the Anasazi people of America edged solar images on the Chaco Canyon walls. With rudimentary astronomy Anasazi’s Sun Priests foretold the rhythm of the sun, when to plant and when to harvest in an unforgiving desert. But strange events were to unfold, in the 11^th century a single generation Anasazi were an audience to an extraordinary celestial pageant. In forty years they witnessed Haley’s Comet, two solar eclipses and an exploding star that illuminated the sky for three weeks on end. The devoted sky watchers erected five solar observatories in Chaco Canyon and aligned their cities in the sun’s movements. The Anasazi were well versed in the comings and goings of the sun but of its inner workings they knew nothing.

Four centuries later in 1664 the curiosity of a Cambridge University student lead to a fundamental discovery. His name, Sir Isaac Newton; he concluded that sunlight is composed of a spectrum of colours, red at one end, violet on the other. A spectrum is like a signature it uniquely reveals its author’s hand. The sun emits mostly green and blue light, less are violet and red. That signature reveals the temperature of the visible sun, averaging almost 6,000°, but as it was discovered later, 6,000° was merely the cool part of the sun. In 1929 scientists on an eclipse expedition observed furious fingers of gas streaming hundreds of thousands of kilometres into space; the sun had exposed its tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona. But scientists analyzing its spectrum found temperatures exceeding a million degrees, how could the corona be so much hotter than the sun’s surface? It was a puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved.

Since Galileo Galilei and the invention of the telescope Galileo had observed sunspots on the sun and after having relayed to the Church that the sun had blemishes, he was swiftly ushered to his new accommodations better known as prison for heresy. Galileo was forced to recant to get out of prison and spent the rest of his life in house arrest. But he was right when he said the sun was not pure. Although the sun was a god in the past thousands of years in the pagan religions it still held a high place when Christianity came strong to the fore. Still today if you visit some of the Christian churches the sun is well displayed on ceilings and/or behind some of the statues of the saints. The sun was considered as a pure smooth globe, soft as the finest of silk spun in sparkling gold. Well no, it’s none of those things. It is violent and dangerous. It hiccups, burps and releases gas. Lots of gas. Some bubbles of gas are the size of Texas, the sun experiences hurricanes and shockwaves, tornadoes as big as continents spewing thousands of kilometres of radioactive hot gases into space, known as solar flares and some are so incredibly violent that the exploding gases hurl towards earth and punches into our magnetosphere without apologies, where then we can see the auroras on either side of our poles. These high explosions are called coronal mass ejection (CME). Now that is some exploding gas, no wonder the sun is angry. In 1989 the citizens of Quebec, including myself got a taste of just how angry the sun can be. Power grids got fried and for 9 hours Quebec went into a blackout. The phones pinged; the lights at first went dim, dimmer, and still dimmer and then completely out. The clock on my stove got fried and so did the coffee maker, anything electrical moaned and died including some satellites orbiting our earth. Outside the night skies turned into daylight with a beautiful swirling pink sky similar to that of a belly dancer’s veils moving across the heavens. Some thought this was the end of the world, others were fascinated at the physics of nature and the awareness of the mere mortals that we are, completely helpless at the ravages of nature itself. This was a CME (coronal mass ejection) hurling from the sun towards earth over a million miles per hour. If a CME could do this, imagine what a Super Coronal Mass Ejection could do to our earth, to us, and anything living. Astronomers have observed some stars like our sun and some somewhat bigger have Super Coronal Mass Ejections, we’ve never had them here and thank goodness we haven’t because a SCME would strip away our ozone layers and all living things would be affected with radiation. This would cause our molecules, our DNA inside our bodies to break down within three days and we including living things such as birds, animals, fish and plants would die. When the astronomers first landed on the moon they knew little of the damages solar flares could cause, today on the International Space Station astronomers have a safe zone cabin on board so when they get the alert from Spaceweather that a solar flare is heading their way they seek refuge in their safe zone until it passes. Still even in their safe zone they receive the equation of a thousand X-rays within some minutes. Spaceweather and solar-physicists are vigilant observers for sunspots, CMEs and the sun’s activities.

The sun is a magnetic star, at its birth the sun spun so rapidly it generated enormous magnetic fields. To this day clumps of furious magnetic activity from deep inside the sun erupt onto the surface and become visible as sunspots up to fifty thousand kilometres in diameter. Why they came and went in an eleven-year cycle perplexed astronomers for centuries. At last when SOHO was launched in 1995 solar physicists had the chance to understand the inner workings of the sun and what drives the solar cycle. Beneath the surface two shells nest like those Russian dolls I had previously mentioned, the inner shell of hot gas rotates like a solid ball. Within the outer shell, circulates immense jet streams of electrified hydrogen. The electrified charged layers slide past each other like elements of an enormous dynamo. Somehow they reset the sun’s powerful magnetic field every eleven years to create the solar cycle.

Are you feeling somewhat confused by now? Don’t worry about it even physicists are scratching their heads. Simply put you can say that fusion drives the sun and makes her hiccup, burp and emit gas and sing. Yes the sun sings – smiles.

The Death of our Sun

Our sun is now 4.5 billion years old, it is approaching middle age, but we know little of how a middle-aged sun will behave. Other middle-aged suns vary in their intensities, some become slightly cooler, and some become hotter. Already the earth has felt the effects of similar fluctuations, a mini ice age in the 15^th and 16^th centuries coincided with a passive sun. Centuries earlier a more active sun is believed to have triggered three hundred years of higher temperatures, long before our industrial age brought global greenhouse warming. Isotopes in polar ice cores suggest the sun is more violent now than it’s been for five or six thousand years. The behaviour of other middle-aged stars suggests our sun could become more violent yet. Since it was born the sun has been consuming itself at the rate of five million tons of hydrogen every second, a fuel starved sun will burn faster and hotter. Within two billion years, higher temperatures here on earth will evaporate the ocean. The planet will be nudged towards a run-away greenhouse condition, considering we didn’t haste its speed with our own activities by causing a run-away greenhouse effect much sooner. Life on earth would have been baked out of existence, yet the sun’s final chapter will have only begun.

Astronomers are well aware of how the sun will die. As they die most stars produce an aluminous ball of gas called a nebula. Like epitaphs nebulas remain suspended in the universe for thousands of years. Only the very largest stars become an exploding super nova, our sun is too small to expire in a blaze of glory. Death will be administered slowly by gravity.

A Red Giant

As the last of the hydrogen in our sun’s core burns the star’s crust will swell, becoming a Red Giant, engulfing Mercury and Venus. From earth the sun would fill a quarter of the earth’s daytime sky. As the star expands gravity weakens its hold, pieces will blow away and drift into interstellar space. At the core, relentless gravity will crush the helium ashes of the ten billion year old firewall with a force so great they will ignite hotter than before. At a hundred million degrees the doomed helium atoms will become first carbon then oxygen. The end is near.

From the cinders a faint glow will emerge, it will mark the graveyard of a star that shed light for ten billion years. Its ashes may be swept up by a passing comet, all that will remain is nuclear waste or stardust.

The Helix Nebula – a sample of how our star will look with its nebula surrounding a white dwarf. If witnessed from another solar system our star will become a white dwarf, giving off a bluish faint light.

video by true masked wabbit

To be continued – Global Warming / Global Dimming

Note:* This post The Sun/Global Warming/Global Dimming (and the continuing post)

Is written in answer to a question our friend Viccles had asked on my previous post (Pangaea The Battling Elements)

Have a fantastic weekend and a safe week ahead

TrudiWabbit