Is the sun getting bigger, Right Now!

[The Code]

The sun converts hydrogen into helium at the rate of 450/600 million tons per second. It is losing Mass by 4.26 million tons per second. So is the 500 million tons going into its growth of helium, and this means the sun is growing at a steady rate per second? Would this loss of mass have any effects on orbits over many years?

Mark

[Chris Peterson]

The sun converts hydrogen into helium at the rate of 450/600 million tons per second. It is losing Mass by 4.26 million tons per second. So is the 500 million tons going into its growth of helium, and this means the sun is growing at a steady rate per second? Would this loss of mass have any effects on orbits over many years?

The mass loss to energy is very small- at its fusion rate, the Sun could lose mass for almost two trillion years. Of course, since it is losing mass, the orbital radii of all the planets are affected. But the amount is so small as to have essentially no impact.

The size of the Sun is more complicated. It is determined by the equilibrium between gravitational collapse and radiation pressure. What that means is that the size can be getting larger or smaller, depending on where it is in its life. Currently it is getting larger and warmer. Again, the amount is very slight over any time scale of practical value to humans. I'd say that the growth rate isn't perfectly linear, but to a first approximation you could consider it to be growing at a steady rate per second.

[neufer]

The sun converts hydrogen into helium at the rate of 450/600 million tons per second. It is losing Mass by 4.26 million tons per second. So is the 500 million tons going into its growth of helium, and this means the sun is growing at a steady rate per second? Would this loss of mass have any effects on orbits over many years?

The sun's relative mass loss from photons & solar wind is negligible at the current time.

However, as the sun grows in size its solar wind will increase by many fold and
the sun will be expected to have lost 30% of its mass by the time it becomes a red giant.

[code]Solar Mass loss in billions of tons per hour

Method Now 5 billion years from now

Photons : 15.3 25.0
Solar Wind: 6.7 30,000.[/code]
The effect of expanding planetary orbits simply due to mass loss
will probably be swamped by strong tidal & solar wind forces.

[neufer]

The Sun is currently behaving unexpectedly in a number of ways.

* It is measurably dimming; its output has dropped 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths in comparison with the levels at the last solar minimum.

* Over the last two decades, the solar wind's speed has dropped 3%, its temperature 13%, and its density 20%.

* Its magnetic field is at less than half strength compared to the minimum of 22 years ago. The entire heliosphere, which fills the Solar System, has shrunk as a result, resulting in an increase in the level of cosmic radiation striking the Earth and its atmosphere.

[neufer]

<<Until recently it was thought that there were 28 cycles in the 309 years between
1699 & 2008, giving an average length of 11.04 years, but recent research has showed

that the longest of these (1784-99) seems actually to have been two cycles,

so that the average length is only around 10.66 years.>>


History of the number of observed sunspots during the last 250 years

Who thinks that the longest sunspot cycle (1784-99) was actually two cycles?

[The Code]

Thanks For the replies Chris, And Neufer. Very interesting. So could we say that these changes could be much more apparent, say 5000 years ago? But these changes you referred to nuefer got me thinking, to another subject that interests me. And may be relative to this subject. How can the Sun go out? which was described by somebody at the time? Any hows, I know you like to read so here's the link for you to try understand what this person was describing.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/EgyptM ... 09p01.html

Thanks Nuefer, Chris

[rstevenson]

... How can the Sun go out? which was described by somebody at the time? ...

Theosophy? Occult science?

Rob

[Chris Peterson]

So could we say that these changes could be much more apparent, say 5000 years ago?

No. The mass loss rate hasn't changed over that period, and the change in solar output, solar diameter, and solar mass is too small in only 5000 years to even be measurable with our best instruments.

How can the Sun go out? which was described by somebody at the time?

It can't. And it hasn't.

Any hows, I know you like to read so here's the link for you to try understand what this person was describing.

A rambling mix of mysticism and creation mythology. Nothing with any connection to reality.

[bystander]

Not only are you dealing with Egyptian mythology, if the date on the paper can be believed, the material is over 100 years old.

[The Code]

Not only are you dealing with Egyptian mythology, if the date on the paper can be believed, the material is over 100 years old.

The fact they are talking about, is this: Quote

Adjusting Dr. Schoch's recent weathering measurements from the base
structure inside the Pyramid--by adding at least another 1500 years to
its age--we obtain a total date range of 8500-6500 BC for the original
construction and LOCATING of the Great Pyramid. So it was apparently
sited by the Egyptian civilization mentioned in Plato's discussion of
Atlantis, where Egypt is "re-founded" 1000 years after the sinking of
Atlantis in 9600 BC. We now can tie Plato's history to solid rock in
Egypt, with a major part of his story being confirmed: There truly was
an advanced Egyptian civilization founded around 8500 BC. Climatologist
Dr. Cesare Emiliani confirmed in 1973 that Plato's flood date was sound.
Emiliani discovered evidence in sea-core sediments for a sudden global
sea-level rise of c.325 feet around 9600 BC(+/-70yrs)--Plato's date for
the sinking of Atlantis. Emiliani's data proves that, if Atlantis were
real, then it would indeed have been flooded by the ocean at the very
time Plato stated. Plato either relied on genuine history or he made
an astonishingly lucky guess: Within a century of the exact date over
a period of nearly 10,000 years: 99% perfect.

Credit to: http://petragrail.tripod.com/newhistory.html

There are many papers as you say are well over a hundred years old. But also many times I have heard of great floods, droughts, written in hieroglyphics etc etc. and geology stands by this with evidence of ice cores, lake cores etc etc. We all know about ice ages, on a regular basis. Why would not the Suns invariable Mood Never change to a much harsher one? Here's another paper.

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

Quote:

A news item by Jenny Hogan on NewScientist.com of 2 November says, 'The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium. The realisation, which comes from a reconstruction of sunspots stretching back 1150 years, comes just as the Sun has thrown a tantrum. Over the last week, giant plumes of material have burst out from our star's surface and streamed into space, causing geomagnetic storms on Earth.' The history of solar activity was estimated from sunspot counts stretching back to the seventeenth century. Beyond that, the sunspot numbers were deduced from levels of radioactive beryllium-10 trapped in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. When Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, saw the results he said, "It makes the conclusion very stark. We are living with a very unusual Sun at the moment."

So just how far can the Sun change its Mood?

Mark

[neufer]

A news item by Jenny Hogan on NewScientist.com of 2 November says, 'The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium. The realisation, which comes from a reconstruction of sunspots stretching back 1150 years, comes just as the Sun has thrown a tantrum. Over the last week, giant plumes of material have burst out from our star's surface and streamed into space, causing geomagnetic storms on Earth.'

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<The history of solar activity was estimated from sunspot counts stretching back to the seventeenth century. Beyond that, the sunspot numbers were deduced from levels of radioactive beryllium-10 trapped in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. When Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, saw the results he said, "It makes the conclusion very stark. We are living with a very unusual Sun at the moment." >> So just how far can the Sun change its Mood?

[Chris Peterson]

The fact they are talking about, is this: Quote

Adjusting Dr. Schoch's recent weathering measurements from the base
structure inside the Pyramid--by adding at least another 1500 years to
its age--we obtain a total date range of 8500-6500 BC for the original
construction and LOCATING of the Great Pyramid.

Utter, unfounded rubbish. The Great Pyramid is very reliably dated to between 2500 and 2600 BCE. There is no doubt and no controversy about this.

...Plato's discussion of
Atlantis, where Egypt is "re-founded" 1000 years after the sinking of
Atlantis in 9600 BC.

Atlantis = mythology. No such place actually existed. Plato's idea may have had some basis in the destruction of some ancient minor society by a natural disaster, but that's all. Plato certainly was not working with historical information, or anything that could be dated.

Quote:

A news item by Jenny Hogan on NewScientist.com of 2 November says, 'The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium.

That was in 2002, during the solar maximum. And the comment is speculative at best, as reconstructing sunspot cycles is far from an exact science. Right now, we're in a particularly low solar minimum. The simple fact is that the Sun's activity is cyclical, probably on multiple time scales, and may contain a chaotic component as well. There is no evidence that the Sun's activity in historical times has deviated so far from the norm as to result in anything more radical than a slight increase or decrease in global temperature averages. Certainly, nothing cataclysmic.

[bystander]

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

I would question anything I found on a page that displays The Electric Universe in its header, especially something from 6 1/2 years ago (09 November 2003).

[Chris Peterson]

I would question anything I found on a page that displays The Electric Universe in its header, especially something from 6 1/2 years ago (09 November 2003).

Yes, the site is certainly of negative intellectual value. Total garbage. But the secondhand quote about the Sun was from a reputable source (which is really the source that should have been used, not the pseudoscience site).

[The Code]

But the secondhand quote about the Sun was from a reputable source (which is really the source that should have been used, not the pseudoscience site).

I don't understand. Which source? The information is so hard to find with so little time. I suppose its best from my own memory. Witnesses from 3500 BC, have written in some form or another Of a great Flood. Of a great drought, Of a time when the Sun "Went Out". Unless they were in 24 hour darkness, how could they describe The Sun ''went out'' ? They did not say The sky was Black. They understood the clouds blocks out sunlight, they did not say big black sooty clouds covered the sun. they said the sun went out period. So what was they saying, with archaeological evidence that proves that something really drastic did happen?

I will have another look for better source info tomorrow.

Mark

[Chris Peterson]

I don't understand. Which source?

You quoted holoscience.com quoting NewScientist.com. The former is junk at its worst. The latter is a reputable site. It would have been better if you had simply quoted The New Scientist directly.

Witnesses from 3500 BC, have written in some form or another Of a great Flood. Of a great drought, Of a time when the Sun "Went Out". Unless they were in 24 hour darkness, how could they describe The Sun ''went out'' ?

There is almost no recorded history from that long ago. Floods are normal and happen all the time. Likewise for droughts. And there are loads of mythological tales that almost certainly have little or no connection with reality. An anecdotal ancient reference to the Sun going out could be an eclipse, it could be a hallucination, or it could be simple fiction. None of this is any more credible than Joshua making the Sun stand still or any of hundreds of other tales.

There is no geological evidence of any sort of worldwide flood. Such a thing did not happen. There were, of course, many regional floods, and in an era of tiny, regional cultures it is to be expected that some of these would be seen as much greater.

[The Code]

There is almost no recorded history from that long ago. Floods are normal and happen all the time. Likewise for droughts. And there are loads of mythological tales that almost certainly have little or no connection with reality. An anecdotal ancient reference to the Sun going out could be an eclipse, it could be a hallucination, or it could be simple fiction. None of this is any more credible than Joshua making the Sun stand still or any of hundreds of other tales.

There is no geological evidence of any sort of worldwide flood. Such a thing did not happen. There were, of course, many regional floods, and in an era of tiny, regional cultures it is to be expected that some of these would be seen as much greater.

Well you learn something every day, I did think that 10,000 years ago the globalize flood was sort of set in stone. And it was hard to prove other wise, looking through the internet. I did however manage to find some interesting articles that do state that something did happen. And here they are:

http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn047/worldwideflood.htm
http://www.earthage.org/EarthOldorYoung ... _flood.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age#Va ... rgy_output

In the middle of the last ice age, where i live in England would have been 2 miles under the ice cap. There are several reasons for the ice as you read. and one of those does state the sun is a variable star. I do not see, how an ice age can be sustained for thousands of years without help from a dimming sun. A cooling due to volcano's ? would that of killed 99% of life? And then as suddenly as it appeared, the ice age was gone. How variable is our sun? I can not write off what that person wrote on the wall of his burial chamber, in hieroglyphs. ''The Sun Went Out''

Mark

[Ann]

I liked the monthly average sunspot curve that was posted by Art. I guess the proper conclusion is that all stars are more or less variable, and the Sun is a star, so it is variable, too. Although I think the Sun is fairly constant as variable stars go!

Ann

[neufer]

I liked the monthly average sunspot curve that was posted by Art. I guess the proper conclusion is that all stars are more or less variable, and the Sun is a star, so it is variable, too. Although I think the Sun is fairly constant as variable stars go!

In visible light the sun IS remarkably constant; however, the sunspot cycle manifests itself as a 10% variation in ultraviolet light making for up to a 10º C variation in upper stratospheric temperatures. As a consequence, the wintertime stratospheric polar vortex is noticeably less stable during sunspot maxima. It is an open question whether or not this stratospheric (sudden stratospheric warming) instability variation has any noticeable effect on our tropospheric weather but it would really be nice to know if one should be looking at a 10.66 year cycle or an 11.02 year cycle.

[Chris Peterson]

Well you learn something every day, I did think that 10,000 years ago the globalize flood was sort of set in stone.

Nope. Just the opposite- evidence very strongly shows that there was no global flooding at any time in history. The first two websites you reference are junk- just your typical religious sites picking and choosing a few studies, and misinterpreting them to try and support bible stories. The Wikipedia articles about ice ages are just fine, but don't suggest any global flooding. Of course, at the end of ice ages the ocean levels rise, but that would not cause cataclysmic flooding. And melt waters certainly increased the incidence of local and regional flooding. But there is nothing relating to ice ages that can cause global flooding.

In the middle of the last ice age, where i live in England would have been 2 miles under the ice cap. There are several reasons for the ice as you read. and one of those does state the sun is a variable star. I do not see, how an ice age can be sustained for thousands of years without help from a dimming sun.

Did you read the Wikipedia article on ice ages? It points out that the variability of the Sun is far too small to explain these climate cycles, and that we need to look at the interaction between multiple effects to get some idea how they occur. If you are interested in times when modern humans have been on Earth, there have been no ice ages. Or more properly, there has been one ice age, and we are still in it. That ice age has been punctuated by glacial and interglacial periods, which are almost entirely explained by Milankovitch cycles and associated shifts in feedback effects.

I can not write off what that person wrote on the wall of his burial chamber, in hieroglyphs. ''The Sun Went Out''

I write it off as easily as I do the guy in the New Testament who said somebody walked on water. Nonsense is nonsense, and somebody writing it down a few thousand years ago doesn't make it less so.

[BMAONE23]

This thread seems to have evolved away from the sun and into a global flood.
In the discussion of flooding on a biblical scale being inferred by localized civilization altering events
This could be the cause of the "Biblical" flood.
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_re ... BiotID=422

[The Code]

How can there be a time, that was hotter than now. with no power stations or petrol engines or methane from billions of animals. In the past, the hottest periods were a duel between a hotter sun and volcanic activity. So its going to get very hot again. but how hot is it going to be, when you put human activity into the mix? If we have a big volcano around NOW! That means we are going to fry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:0Mast ... 150dpi.png

Click to view full size image

But on the other hand. What mechanism puts 2 miles (deep) of ice over my house?

http://www.datacenter53.com/the-data-sa ... heory.html

What is a Dalton Type Solar Minimum? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum

They say its not well understood.

Why should we not take notice of past records, does not our world depend on knowing whats going to happen? After all, we do know, it is going to happen don't we? And as a lot of past records (Graphs) show, it usually happens very fast.

Mark

[Chris Peterson]

How can there be a time, that was hotter than now. with no power stations or petrol engines or methane from billions of animals. In the past, the hottest periods were a duel between a hotter sun and volcanic activity.

That is an inaccurate assessment. Periods of hotter temperature have not been related to a hotter Sun- there is little evidence of that.

[Ann]

I just bought the June issue of Astronomy magazine. On the cover there is a deeply red-orange picture of the Sun,, with the following caption: Is the SUN an oddball star? The article in the magazine says that while it is easy to find analogs of the Sun in our cosmic vicinity (that is, it is easy to find main sequence stars of spectral class G around here), it has proved very hard to find solar twins. A solar twin should have the same age, chemical composition, magnetic properties etc. as the Sun.

The magazine says that an astronomer named Mark Giampapa has studied 15 solar analogs in M67, a cluster with the same age as the Sun, but the stars studied all have shorter sunspot cycles than the Sun. All of them had cycles shorter than six years, compared with eleven years for the Sun. "I'm seeing some brightness variability data that suggests that the Sun might be more quiescent than most stars," says Mark Giampapa to Astronomy magazine. A possible reason for the solar quiescence, if I understood the magazine correctly, is that the Sun might be slightly less magnetic than most stars. "Strong magnetic fields pose more danger than no magnetic fields" says an astronomer named Ulrich according to the magazine.

The Sun is also chemically different from most solar analogs. An astronomer named Jorge Meléndez has studied 75% of all solar analogs in the Hipparcos million-star catalog, and it turns out that one difference between the Sun and most solar analogs is that the Sun is depleted in "refractory elements", which are elements that vaporize at high temperatures. Meléndez says that these elements probably formed dust and then accreted into planetesimals and ultimately into terrestrial planets in our solar system. About 15% of all solar analogs studied have a chemical composition similar to the Sun.

Personally I think it is interesting to think that the Sun may not be so typical after all. It may be less magnetic than most solar analogs, and it has a chemical composition which is unlike most solar analogs, too.

Also, let's not forget that stars of spectral class G are neither "typcial" nor "average" in the Milky Way. The typical, average star here is much smaller and cooler than the Sun. In fact, about 95% of all stars in the Milky Way are fainter than the Sun! The true "average sun" here is a cool, faint red dwarf. So why do we find ourselves orbiting a star which is so "untypical" in our galaxy? I think there are two possible answers to that. One is that life (and complex life-forms and intelligence) is so common in the Milky Way that you will find it even on planets orbiting "untypical stars" like the Sun. (If that is the case, then it follows, of course, that there will be life on billions and billions of planets orbiting the "typical stars" of our galaxy, the red dwarfs.)

Or it could be that life is finicky, that it won't form easily, and that it certainly won't evolve into complex life forms easily. It could be that our star, untypical and unusual as it is, was one of the few in our galaxy which was good enough for life.

Ann

[Beyond]

OR, as i have suggested before, pehaps the sun in not native to this section of space? To me its kinda like bumble bees. Their wing size does not give them enough lift to fly (especially the really big ones), but they do not know that and fly around anyway.
OR, how about water? Water must be really smart. Its the only thing that expands when it freezes. Good thing too, or we all would be frozen solid in ice that started forming from the bottom up, instead of floating on top of the water and freezing downward. There are many things in the heavens and on Earth that do not "fit" into man's way of thinking. The Sun just happens to be a BIG and very important one - for now. And who knows what surprises it still has instore for us, who benefit from what it produces? Space is still full of "unknown" strange things, many of which are most likely not detectable by our current scientific equipment and are just waiting to surprise us in the future. So lets just admire the pictures of space that we have and enjoy what we know about them and realize that there is room for improvement in all things.