Taken by Hinode’s Solar Optical Telescope on January 12, 2007, this image of the Sun reveals the filamentary nature of the plasma connecting regions of different magnetic polarity.
6] Assuming some convergence of these factors (Mag. Field reversal, axial tilt, an increase in
solar activity, etc.) what do you think the impact would be?
Although each topic can be studied by itself, anticipating a convergence is too vague to
speculate about.
7] Is there any way to model or prognosticate these effects (given so many variables)?
Each individual area is being looked at. People are starting to look at the whole system (we like to call it “Sun to Mud”) and we are starting to make headway in our understanding.
8] Do you envision any worst case scenario’ here?
No
9] What do you feel are the most important/major scientific questions to be answered regarding the
sun?
How the dynamo inside the Sun produces the activity we see at and above the surface. How are active regions produced at the surface? Are these questions part of the same process or two more or less independent processes?
10] What’s the most surprising thing that you have learned about our Sun from your work?
That the sunspot cycle was only half of the activity cycle. Only the sunspot cycle is part of the usual science curriculum. But it is the other half, the coronal holes and polar magnetic field, that are the new information of the modern era
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What’s Keeping an Eye on the Earth (and Sun)?
In 2002 NASA launched the GRACE and JASON missions that help to more precisely track changes in Earth’s geodesy, and launched the ICESAT mission in 2008 to monitor polar ice. Other missions: SDO, STEREO (a pair of triangulating solar satellites), and HINODE, a Japanese collaboration, is currently imaging and collecting data from the sun.
top photo: (solar disc with sunspots) NASA
center photo: Hinode solar probe – JAXA / NASA
sun-like solar diagram: NASA
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About Michael Ricciardi
