The Sun is in its lower temperature

By admin September 24, 2008

The Sun reduced the power of its furnace to the detected lowest levels in the space era, indicate new measures taken by a space probe.

But it does not have why to worry: the difference is too small to change the Earth life, said to scientists Tuesday. In fact, it means that the satellites will be able to remain in orbit a little more.

The solar wind, a charged particle current that is dismissed from the upper atmosphere of the sun 1,5 million kilometers per hour, is significantly weaker, colder and less dense than it has been in 50 years, according to new data of the Ulises sounding, administered by the NASA and the European Space Agency.

In addition, for the first time in almost a century, the Sun spent two months to this summer without sunspots, said David Hathaway, solar physicist of the NASA. This mark broke Monday, when it appeared a group of eight spots. The sunspots are temporary regions of intense magnetic activity that from the Earth appear as manchones black in the solar disc.

The cause behind the tenuous dimming of the Sun seems to be a change in its magnetic flux, said Dave McComas, of the Institute of Investigation of the Southwest. It is a mystery why it is happening, but already has fluctuated thus in the past.

More tenuous solar winds mean less friction on the satellites, so that they can remain in the space a little more. Although this is good for the satellites, also it means more space scrap iron.

Normally the Sun happens through a cycle of 11 years in which it has more soon and less sunspots, and a similar cycle as far as the power of the solar wind. But the scientists said Tuesday that the Sun is in a minimum very prolonged. Typically a hard solar minimum near a year, but this point under has persisted from the summer of 2006.

It is like lowering the heat to a stove, said McComas, scientist whom the solar sounding Ulises used to document a solar wind significantly more tenuous.

The sounding of 17 years of age, that turns around the Sun to a distance of 540 million kilometers, has above been studying the atmosphere and underneath the solar poles. It is to little months to stop operating because the fuel is being congealed.

Recently the solar wind are been almost 14 colder percent and 17 less dense percent, according to a report that McComas published in the magazine Geophysical Research Letters.

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