Merged Electric Sun Theory (Split from: CME's, active regions and high energy flares)

[Tim Thompson]

Electric Sun & the Solar Wind I

I continue here in response to Haig's long post #1168 (dated 29 December 2010) in this thread. Here I will address a question he raised concerning the solar wind.

* I am indebted to Professor Don Scott for this insight. He points out that the complete shutdown of the solar wind for two days in May 1999 is understandable with his transistor model. It is inexplicable on the thermonuclear model since there was no change in the Sun''s visible energy output that accompanied the phenomenon.

Note that despite the use of the first person here, "I" does not refer to Haig, who blindly cut & pasted this paragraph from a Thornhill webpage so that it looks like Haig referring to himself, but the "I" here is actually Thornhill.

Haig already asked about this only 10 days previously, on 19 December 2010:

Why was there a complete shutdown of the solar wind for two days in May 1999?

And I answered the next day:

The solar wind did not shut down at any time. Rather, the Earth was surrounded by a low density plasma cloud (see Vats, et al., 2001). Outside the low density region around the Earth, the solar wind was apparently in its normal state. Ordinary variations in the solar wind are caused by the fact that the solar wind is emitted by the extremely variable environment of the chromosphere/corona, so it comes as no surprise that the solar wind will be as variable as the environment wherein it is spawned.

How soon we forget. Only 9 days later and Haig has already forgotten that this falsehood was already dealt with. I guess that's the depth of carelessness which we can expect.

 

[tusenfem]

How soon we forget. Only 9 days later and Haig has already forgotten that this falsehood was already dealt with. I guess that's the depth of carelessness which we can expect.

It's just selective memory, whatever does not fit in Haig's preconceptions (and here I thought at the beginning that he was a different kind of EU admirer, more open, boy was I mistaken!) does not stick in his brain, it goes in one ear and out the other, or in case of this bulletin board I should say in one eye and out the other.

 

[Haig]

I continue here in response to Haig's long post #1168 (dated 29 December 2010) in this thread. Here I will address a question he raised concerning the solar wind.

Note that despite the use of the first person here, "I" does not refer to Haig, who blindly cut & pasted this paragraph from a Thornhill webpage so that it looks like Haig referring to himself, but the "I" here is actually Thornhill.

Haig already asked about this only 10 days previously, on 19 December 2010:

And I answered the next day:

How soon we forget. Only 9 days later and Haig has already forgotten that this falsehood was already dealt with. I guess that's the depth of carelessness which we can expect.

It's just selective memory, whatever does not fit in Haig's preconceptions (and here I thought at the beginning that he was a different kind of EU admirer, more open, boy was I mistaken!) does not stick in his brain, it goes in one ear and out the other, or in case of this bulletin board I should say in one eye and out the other.

If you read again what I posted you will notice Wal Thornhill at the end not Haig

I don't always have time to put things in quotes but the name at the end is a clue as to whose words they are. Here let me copy and paste it again:

Here is another:The Bottom Line

Our Sun, like all stars, is a variable star. We must learn to live with the uncertainty of a star that is a product of its environment. We can expect our Sun to change when it enters regions of interstellar space where there is more or less dust, which alters the plasma characteristics. In the meantime, we can only look for reassurance by closely examining the behavior of nearby stars. A few massive CME's are the least of our concerns.

* I am indebted to Professor Don Scott for this insight. He points out that the complete shutdown of the solar wind for two days in May 1999 is understandable with his transistor model. It is inexplicable on the thermonuclear model since there was no change in the Sun''s visible energy output that accompanied the phenomenon.
Data from Ulysses show that the solar wind originates in holes in the sun's corona, and the speed of the solar wind varies inversely with coronal temperature. "This was completely unexpected," said Lanzerotti. "Theorists had predicted the opposite. Now all models of the sun and the solar wind will have to explain this observation."
I missed an opportunity. This finding could have been predicted from the electrical model of the Sun.

The standard model of the solar wind has it "boiling off" the Sun so that you would expect a direct correlation between coronal temperature and solar wind speed. That is precisely the opposite of what the Ulysses spacecraft saw.
In the electric model of the Sun, where the solar electric field is strong in the coronal holes, protons of the solar wind are being strongly accelerated away from the Sun. Their random motion becomes less significant in a process called de-thermalization. Outside the coronal holes, where the coronal electric field is weaker, the protons move more aimlessly. As a result they suffer more collisions and move more randomly. The degree of random movement of particles directly equates to temperature. So the solar wind is fastest where the corona appears coolest and the solar wind is slowest where the corona appears hottest — as Ulysses found. Wal Thornhill
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

Sure I read this but is doesn’t explain the variability of the solar wind IMHO
(my bold)
Abstract

a large, tenuous, and slow plasma cloud engulfed our planet around this time, which could be because of a co rotating low-density narrow stream

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001JGR...10625121V

So I’m to be blamed for NASA’s dramatic prose?

The Day the Solar Wind Disappeared

Dropping to a fraction of its normal density and to half its normal speed, the solar wind died down enough to allow physicists to observe particles flowing directly from the Sun's corona to Earth. This severe change in the solar wind also changed the shape of Earth's magnetic field and produced an unusual auroral display at the North Pole.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast13dec99_1/

The EU/PC explanation for the variability of the solar wind makes sense and also explains the various solar cycles. Mainstream has no explanation that I have read.

THE SUN — Our Variable Star
Important Consequences of the Electric Star Model for the Sun.

2. Near the Sun, galactic transmission lines are in the form of 0.3 parsecs wide rotating Birkeland filaments (based on those detected at the center of the Milky Way). Their motion relative to the Sun will produce a slowly varying magnetic field and current density –' in other words a solar activity cycle. To that extent, all stars are variable. And just like real estate, location is vital.
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

 

[Michael Mozina]

If you read again what I posted you will notice Wal Thornhill at the end not Haig

They'll figure it out sooner or later, but not before they are done having their fun.

Our Sun, like all stars, is a variable star. We must learn to live with the uncertainty of a star that is a product of its environment. We can expect our Sun to change when it enters regions of interstellar space where there is more or less dust, which alters the plasma characteristics.

I think the questions become *how* variable, and how much *total* variation are we talking about? You'll note that during the timeline in question the sun did not "turn off" along with the solar wind. It still shined. It still radiated heat. If the sun were externally powered, wouldn't the photosphere have also gone dark?

Keep in mind that no "electric sun" model is precluded from having an *internal* energy source that "interacts" electromagnetically with the the interstellar "dust" buffeting the heliosphere.

In Birkeland's model the sun is internally powered and acts as a "cathode" but produces both types of particles in terms of solar wind. Compared to the heliosphere however, the cathode (under the surface of the photosphere) is charged negatively with respect to the interstellar winds.

In Scott's model, the sun acts as an anode, but technically it's not limited to a completely *external* energy source like Jergeunson's version.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I don't need to fit in anywhere, I am just fine where I am, a reasonably well established space physicist with about 100 publications and an h-factor of 19.

I think it is pretty clear what I mean. You want to pin down Peratt by his one sentence (the rapid transfer of E or B energy), but that is not the whole quote. Peratt continues to add to that, about a break down of the medium, when certain stresses are exceeded.

So what? An "electrical discharge" can "go through" a solid (provided it's a conductor) and "pinch" that solid in a way that would normally not occur in that very same solid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinch_(plasma_physics)

*IF* there is enough *current flow* through the "conductor", *THEN* it "may" ionize all the atoms to a fully ionized state. Even an electrical discharge in the Earth's atmosphere is not likely to fully ionize every single atom in the discharge filament.

We'll get to the rest in due time, but until and unless we can both agree that a "discharge" can occur in atoms in *ALL* it various states (including plasma), then there's little to discuss.

A plasma can be in a "glow" discharge mode, and yet a "discharge arc" can still be generated due to an "electrical discharge" if we suddenly crank up the current flow.

 

[GeeMack]

In Birkeland's model the sun acts as a "cathode" but produces both types of particles in terms of solar wind. Compared to the heliosphere however, the cathode (under the surface of the photosphere) is charged negatively with respect to the interstellar winds.

That is a ludicrous, and of course dishonest interpretation of anything Birkeland ever considered with his terrella experiments. There is nothing remotely honest or even realistic in that argument. The electric Sun cranks make up this nonsense as they go along, and argue by spitting on the graves of dead scientists.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't always have time to put things in quotes but the name at the end is a clue as to whose words they are.

Find the time. It's very bad form to quote without using either quotation marks or the quote tags. Hell, you don't even need to type anything, just select the text in question, and then hit that little quote icon above the text box. It's the one just to the left of the # icon.

Here is another:The Bottom Line

I notice they still won't attach numbers to their ideas. That page also refers to Juergens, who had the ◊◊◊◊◊◊* crazy idea that the sun had a voltage of 10 billion volts. And they have the audacity to claim that this physically impossible scenario, which STILL wouldn't power the sun for even 1 second, "has so far passed the harsh tests of observed reality." Why on earth do you expect us to swallow such utter tripe?

You keep posting links and quotes to sources that keep saying the same nonsense. None of them can explain the total power output of the sun. In fact, none of them appear to be even trying.

 

[dasmiller]

Keep in mind that no "electric sun" model is precluded from having an *internal* energy source that "interacts" electromagnetically with the the interstellar "dust" buffeting the heliosphere.

It is my understanding that in the conventional model, the solar wind keeps the vast majority of the interstellar dust from getting within many AU of the sun. Do some EU/PC theories rely on direct solar interaction with interstellar material to explain some of the sun's behavior?

And if so, would this mean that stars should exhibit dramatically different behavior if they're extragalactic or imbedded in nebulae?

 

[Tim Thompson]

Solar Wind "Disappearance Event" of 1999

Sure I read this but is doesn’t explain the variability of the solar wind IMHO
(my bold)
Abstract

a large, tenuous, and slow plasma cloud engulfed our planet around this time, which could be because of a co rotating low-density narrow stream

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001JGR...10625121V

So I’m to be blamed for NASA’s dramatic prose?

The solar wind did not "turn off" at any time during this event.

Haig selects a sentence from the abstract to make a big deal out of the words "could be". But let us repeat that exercise, this time looking at the entire abstract. Emphasis here is mine of course.

Interplanetary scintillation observations for the solar wind disappearance event of May 1999
Vats, et al., Journal of Geophysical Research 106(A11): 25121-25124, November 2001
Abstract: In this article we present ground-based interplanetary scintillation (IPS) measurements at 103 and 327 MHz for the period of the solar wind disappearance event of May 1999 as seen by various space probes. The solar wind velocity measurements at 327 MHz showed a variable solar wind velocity during this period at a distance of ~0.5 AU from the Sun. The average solar wind velocity from three radio sources varied in the range of 200-300 km s^-1. The scintillation index measurements at 103 MHz indicate that plasma density was very low in the interplanetary medium closer to the Earth and that the density was normal away from it during May 11-13. The scintillation index was enhanced significantly on May 14 after the disappearance event. The comparison with the in situ observations shows that the effect is dramatic in IPS observations. IPS and in situ measurements show that a large, tenuous, and slow plasma cloud engulfed our planet around this time, which could be because of a corotating low-density narrow stream. From the source (Sun) point of view, this was mostly a normal plasma flow in most of the interplanetary medium.
​

As the reader can see, quite regardless of what may or may not have cause the solar wind in the vicinity of Earth to drop significantly in density, it is clear from both ground based radio scintillation data as well as in situ spacecraft data, that the solar wind throughout the remainder of the heliosphere was seen to be quite normal.

So I’m to be blamed for NASA’s dramatic prose?

No, but you certainly are to blame for thinking that reading a press release is the way to learn science. They are always dramatic, compelling, and quite frankly slanted to titillate the intellect rather than convey proper information. If you keep citing press releases as your major source, regardless of where they come from, you're just going to keep having the same problem.

What did happen? Well like Vats et al. say, maybe a low density streamer from the Sun intersected the path of the Earth. Or maybe something else. Usmanov, et al., 2005 say the low density stream explanation is apparently incorrect. They point out that spacecraft data show strong non-radial flow indicative of a rarefaction trailing a fast flow. They ran an MHD model of the solar wind under such conditions, and are able to reproduce conditions in their model solar wind that are similar to those measured in the real solar wind. So their explanation is certainly consistent with observation. But then Janardhan, et al., 2005 have identified the source region on the sun for the low density flow. They identify the area around active region AR8525 as the source of a "stable uni-polar flow" which engulfed the Earth and is apparently not associated with any global solar cycle. Furthermore, Janardhan, et al., 2008 identify the source regions on the Sun for two more similar "solar wind disappearance events" in March & May 2002, which did not get so much press. It would appear that such events are in fact not quite so rare, and readily associated with active regions on the Sun. Janardhan, Tripathi & Mason, 2008 are more specific, tracing the origin of the 1999 event to the boundary of a coronal hole adjacent to the active region AR8525; their abstract reads, in part, "Results: We find a dynamic evolution taking place in the CH-AR boundary at the source region of the disappearance event of 11 May 1999. This evolution, which is found to reduce the area of the CH, is accompanied by the formation of new loops in EUV images that are spatially-and-temporally correlated with emerging flux regions as seen in MDI data."

There you have it. Why can't the "scientists" at Thunderbolts do what I did, spend a few minutes looking through the abstract databases and see what really happened? This happens over & over & over, Haig posts some cut & paste job from Thunderbolts that is supposed to crash like thunder over the mainstream explanation, I spend a few minutes playing around in the databases, and prove that they don't have clue.

Now can we finally stop repeating this falsehood that the solar wind actually stopped? It did not.

 

[tusenfem]

So what? An "electrical discharge" can "go through" a solid (provided it's a conductor) and "pinch" that solid in a way that would normally not occur in that very same solid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinch_(plasma_physics)

And because you want to discuss electrical discharges you show a picture of a PINCH, yeah, really clever. It is clear that a strong current flowed through that pipe (lightning rod) and the pinch effect (i.e. the attractive force of parallel currents) squashed it. An experiment that apparently was done by Pollock and Barraclough in 1905. What does this have to do with electrical discharges? Exactly NOTHING.

The only thing it is related to is lightning, which we know is a discharge. A strong charge separation between clouds and ground is produced, and at one point the break down electric field of the atmosphere is crossed and a lightning discharge happens. The fact that it has hit the lightning rod has absolutely nothing to do with discharges, but with other kind of physics, i.e. that charges prefer to be located at such poles and facilitates the lightning to find a closest point to strike at.

*IF* there is enough *current flow* through the "conductor", *THEN* it "may" ionize all the atoms to a fully ionized state. Even an electrical discharge in the Earth's atmosphere is not likely to fully ionize every single atom in the discharge filament.

stop your frakking *"""*"'""* that is so irritating. It is not even clear how you use these thing, and whether or not it really is important what you CAPITALIZE or what you put in ** or in "" or in '' or whatever.

So, you want to ionize all the atoms in that lightning rod? Good luck with that.

We'll get to the rest in due time, but until and unless we can both agree that a "discharge" can occur in atoms in *ALL* it various states (including plasma), then there's little to discuss.

A discharge CANNOT occur in atoms, it can occur in a medium when as by Peratt: a break down of the medium, when certain stresses are exceeded. Do you understand what Peratt writes here?

If I discharge my battery in my car, by leaving the lights turned on over night after I parked. I guess you call that an electrical discharge too. The word discharge has a broad meaning, and that has to be seen in context, which obviously you are not able to.

A plasma can be in a "glow" discharge mode, and yet a "discharge arc" can still be generated due to an "electrical discharge" if we suddenly crank up the current flow.

(From Wiki) Glow discharge plasmas: non-thermal plasmas generated by the application of DC or low frequency RF (<100 kHz) electric field to the gap between two metal electrodes. Probably the most common plasma; this is the type of plasma generated within fluorescent light tubes.

Here the discharge is creating the plasma, if you turn off the voltage, the plasma disappears. The glowing is because of the limited amount of collisions with electrons, which make that there can be de-excitation of the ions.

You cannot crank up the current, what you can do is that you increase the voltage on the electrodes.

Okay, now you can come with your plasma ball again.

 

[The Man]

from Wal Thornhill …“Countless billions of dollars have been wasted based on the thermonuclear model of stars. For example, trying to generate electricity from thermonuclear fusion, “just like the Sun.” The thought that solar scientists have it completely backwards has not troubled anyone’s imagination. The little fusion power that has been generated on Earth has required phenomenal electric power input, “just like the Sun!”
Sure there is:Cosmic Electric Lights

Besides that already noted by others, Thornhill’s remarks take on a different level of inanity when we consider the sources of the electrical power to which he remarks. Not from some ubiquitous unimaginable impossibly large or self perpetuating charge separation, electricity here on Earth is generated by other sources of energy resulting in said charge separations.

Chemical in the case of fossil fuels
Gravitational in the case of hydro-electric
And nuclear in the case of fission reactors

Though I guess EC/PC proponents wouldn’t be so inclined if their attention didn’t just simply stop at charge separation (electricity) and ignoring the forces and energies needed to result in such charge separations. In that regard why should we then stop at simply the energy sources mentioned above driving such man made charge separations here on Earth.

In fact the first two, fossil fuels and hydro-electric, can be traced back to radiant energy from our own sun. The fossil fuel being chemical energy stored from photosynthesis during Earth’s carboniferous period. Hydro-electric power results from the motion of water molecules from lower gravitational potential energies to higher gravitational potential energies in Earth’s water cycle, also driven by radiant energy from our own sun.

The last, fission reactors, depends on unstable heavy elements formed by the nuclear fusion in past generations of stars.

So in fact all are results of solar fusion which is itself driven by gravity and we wouldn’t even stop there, but for the fact that currently we have nowhere else to go after gravity, which may of course eventually change once we have a unified field theory that successfully combines General Relativity with Quantum Field Theory.

 

[Michael Mozina]

My Dear Haig,

You know I love you man, but......

It's really important IMO not to take a sentence or two out of context.

The solar wind is both highly directional and highly variable over time. A "lull" in that output around Earth, or even around a few satellites *and* Earth, would not necessarily mean the *entire* spherical solar wind had "stopped". I think you'll probably need to retreat from that position sooner or later. IMO it's better to bite the bullet now, than to get too far out on a limb. I think the relevant points can be observed in SOHO LASCO C2 and C3 images. If you notice there are 'streamers' that are highly directional. A short lull in one specific direction would hardly imply that the *entire* sphere of the sun experienced *no* solar wind. You might go through and look at a few Lasco images so you understand what I mean.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mpeg/

 

[Michael Mozina]

And because you want to discuss electrical discharges you show a picture of a PINCH, yeah, really clever.

Actually, I want to talk about "pinches" caused by "current" flowing through "conductors".

It is clear that a strong current flowed through that pipe (lightning rod) and the pinch effect (i.e. the attractive force of parallel currents) squashed it. An experiment that apparently was done by Pollock and Barraclough in 1905. What does this have to do with electrical discharges? Exactly NOTHING.

That's not quite true. It was an "electrical discharge" that struck that copper tubing, and the current flow through that tubing that caused that "pinch" in the "conductor."

The only thing it is related to is lightning, which we know is a discharge. A strong charge separation between clouds and ground is produced, and at one point the break down electric field of the atmosphere is crossed and a lightning discharge happens.

And that "circuit" is completed by the copper tubing which is in turn "pinched" from the magnetic field generated *BY* the current flowing through it during the discharge process.

The fact that it has hit the lightning rod has absolutely nothing to do with discharges, but with other kind of physics, i.e. that charges prefer to be located at such poles and facilitates the lightning to find a closest point to strike at.

Well, electricity seeks the path of least resistance and tubing was the least resistant path to ground. The "current flow" was a "conditional" process. The tubing is typically "non current carrying" but during the "discharge process", the "conductor" was "pinched" due to "current flows' that are not always present. Plasma can act the same way.

You to be ignoring two key points here. The fact a material is *conductor* isn't doesn't 'prevent' a 'discharge', in fact it's a REQUIREMENT during the "discharge process". There also two different states to consider, a *NON* current carrying state and a current carrying state.

stop your frakking *"""*"'""* that is so irritating. It is not even clear how you use these thing, and whether or not it really is important what you CAPITALIZE or what you put in ** or in "" or in '' or whatever.

It's an attempt at work emphasis that seems to be more annoying than helpful I suppose.

So, you want to ionize all the atoms in that lightning rod? Good luck with that.

Well, with enough current flow, it could be done, but you're right, it would take a lot of sustained energy.

A discharge CANNOT occur in atoms, it can occur in a medium when as by Peratt: a break down of the medium, when certain stresses are exceeded. Do you understand what Peratt writes here?

Sure. I admit I'm comparing apples to oranges or in this case solids to plasmas, but both are 'conductors" and both are capable of "conducting" current flows that "heat" the materials, and "pinch" those materials together.

If I discharge my battery in my car, by leaving the lights turned on over night after I parked. I guess you call that an electrical discharge too. The word discharge has a broad meaning, and that has to be seen in context, which obviously you are not able to.

That's not the case. I'm simply pointing out that breakdown in the medium is irrelevant, it's the "current flow" that matters in terms of the "pinch".

(From Wiki) Glow discharge plasmas: non-thermal plasmas generated by the application of DC or low frequency RF (<100 kHz) electric field to the gap between two metal electrodes. Probably the most common plasma; this is the type of plasma generated within fluorescent light tubes.

Here the discharge is creating the plasma, if you turn off the voltage, the plasma disappears. The glowing is because of the limited amount of collisions with electrons, which make that there can be de-excitation of the ions.

You cannot crank up the current, what you can do is that you increase the voltage on the electrodes.

Well, the point is we go go from a "glow" discharge (or no discharge at all) to an "arc discharge" in plasma. The fact it's a plasma, even a "current carrying" plasma doesn't prevent it from experiencing "discharges" of unusually high "current flows".

The fact a plasma happens to exist, and the fact it's a "conductor" do not prevent it from being raised to a higher energy state during a "discharge" through that plasma.

 

[Michael Mozina]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast13dec99_1/

Starting late on May 10 and continuing through the early hours of May 12, NASA's ACE and Wind spacecraft each observed that the density of the solar wind dropped by more than 98%. Because of the decrease, energetic electrons from the Sun were able to flow to Earth in narrow beams, known as the strahl. Under normal conditions, electrons from the Sun are diluted, mixed, and redirected in interplanetary space and by Earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere). But in May 1999, several satellites detected electrons arriving at Earth with properties similar to those of electrons in the Sun's corona, suggesting that they were a direct sample of particles from the Sun.

"This event provides a window to see the Sun's corona directly," said Dr. Keith Ogilvie, project scientist for NASA's Wind spacecraft and a space physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "The beams from the corona do not get broken up or scattered as they do under normal circumstances, and the temperature of the electrons is very similar to their original state on the Sun."

Emphasis mine. Keep in mind Haig that they still observed high speed electrons coming from the sun. Essentially the proton count (density) dropped 98%, but not necessarily the electron count.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It is my understanding that in the conventional model, the solar wind keeps the vast majority of the interstellar dust from getting within many AU of the sun. Do some EU/PC theories rely on direct solar interaction with interstellar material to explain some of the sun's behavior?

In the sense that the surface electromagnetically interacts with the heliosphere, yes.

And if so, would this mean that stars should exhibit dramatically different behavior if they're extragalactic or imbedded in nebulae?

How come Beetlejuice seems to change in size?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17282-betelgeuse-the-incredible-shrinking-star.html

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI, it's nuts at work at the moment, so forgive my spelling and grammar today. Oy. (not that I ever do much proofreading mind you, but today is just nuts around here).

 

[GeeMack]

My Dear Haig,

You know I love you man, but......

It's really important IMO not to take a sentence or two out of context.

The solar wind is both highly directional and highly variable over time. A "lull" in that output around Earth, or even around a few satellites *and* Earth, would not necessarily mean the *entire* spherical solar wind had "stopped". I think you'll probably need to retreat from that position sooner or later. IMO it's better to bite the bullet now, than to get too far out on a limb. I think the relevant points can be observed in SOHO LASCO C2 and C3 images. If you notice there are 'streamers' that are highly directional. A short lull in one specific direction would hardly imply that the *entire* sphere of the sun experienced *no* solar wind. You might go through and look at a few Lasco images so you understand what I mean.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mpeg/

However, we must keep in mind that looking at pictures is a stupid method of doing science, non-quantitative, amateur, subjective, and as usual with crackpots, dishonest.

 

[dasmiller]

In the sense that the surface electromagnetically interacts with the heliosphere, yes.

I thought that the heliosphere had very little interstellar matter because the solar wind was continuously blowing the interstellar matter away.

How come Beetlejuice seems to change in size?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17282-betelgeuse-the-incredible-shrinking-star.html

<shrug> I'm not the right person to ask.

 

[Michael Mozina]

However, we must keep in mind that looking at pictures is a stupid method of doing science, non-quantitative, amateur, subjective, and as usual with crackpots, dishonest.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6711945&postcount=1198

Three (almost 4) days now and counting and still you haven't rescinded your false claims? Since everyone knows you haven't read Alfven's work, you won't discuss his circuit approach to MHD theory, and you refuse to acknowledge your own blatant mistakes, do you really think anyone is taking you seriously anymore?

 

[Michael Mozina]

I thought that the heliosphere had very little interstellar matter because the solar wind was continuously blowing the interstellar matter away.

I would assume it works a bit like the Earth's magnetosphere and has a similar teardrop shape in fact.

<shrug> I'm not the right person to ask.

I'm just pointing out that stars have some very unusual behaviors that might have something to do with the interstellar medium they happen to be traversing at the moment. Passing through a more dense (or less dense) regions of interstellar space may in fact generate unusual solar wind patterns and unusual light emission patterns as well.