fields

Something weird is going on with the Sun.So far, almost every day in 2022 it has erupted in flares and coronal mass ejections, some of which were the most powerful eruptions our star is capable of.  By itself, an erupting Sun is not weird. It erupts regularly as it goes through periods of high and low activity, in cycles that last roughly 11 years.The current activity is significantly higher than the official NASA and NOAA predictions for the current solar cycle, and solar activity has consistently exceeded predictions…

Elon Musk kicked off a question-and-answer session with Twitter Inc. TWTR -0.34% employees Thursday with a mixture of humor and substance. The meeting, scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Pacific time, began several minutes late, according to Twitter employees participating in the meeting. Mr. Musk spoke to employees via a videoconference from his shakily held smartphone, which he appeared to be holding in his…

Every object we see is a mirror to some extent. The glassy surface of a lake on a windless day is a perfect mirror when it reflects all light faithfully without scatter. But a red strawberry, too, is a mirror, though an imperfect one. The usual reason strawberries appear red is that they reflect reddish and absorb bluish wavelengths. The problem is, sometimes the light that falls on a strawberry does not have any red at all. How do we manage to see red strawberries in the absence of red wavelengths? In the late 19th…

In the early 2000s, a new set of data brought down the chemical abundances on the solar surface. It was in contradiction to the numbers predicted by the traditional models used by astrophysicists. While these new abundances were frequently contested, they survived the scrutiny for several years. Though doubts lingered, these data appeared to be correct. So, it was up to the solar models to change, especially since they are used to studying other stars. Thus, an international team led by astronomers from the UNIGE has…

The Granny Smith gold mine in Australia, operated by Gold Fields, which has been working to diversify its operations outside of South Africa. Photo: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg News…

Breadcrumb Trail Links World Canada Author of the article: Canadian Press Marie Woolf International Development Minister and Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada Minister Harjit Sajjan rises during Question Period, April 4, 2022. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press Article content OTTAWA — Russian troops have planted mines in Ukrainian fields to prevent farmers from cultivating their crops, International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan has been told. Advertisement…

According to Johnny Depp’s former agent, the actor tried to shut down a version of 2018 film London Fields, which included nude scenes of Amber Heard.Tracey Jacobs made the claim on Thursday 19 May, during her testimony in the ongoing defamation trial brought against Heard by her ex-husband. Jacobs began by detailing her working relationship with Depp – who she represented for 30 years – saying that he become a difficult client in the final years that they worked together, claiming he would “show up late to…

A spacecraft looping around the Sun has made its first close approach – and filmed the encounter in glorious detail.The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter entered the close encounter, known as perihelion, on 26 March, coming in at a distance of around 48 million kilometers (30 million miles), inside the orbit of Mercury.  At that proximity, temperatures reached around 500 degrees Celsius (930 degrees Fahrenheit). Future perihelions are expected to get even closer and hotter.As it swooped around its orbit, the…

Sunspots aren't the only speckles decorating the dynamic face of our Sun. Solar physicists have made a close study of tiny, fleeting speckles of brightness that emerge and fade in less than a minute on average, in regions where loops of plasma rise from the solar surface.  They're named 'solar dots'. The fleeting phenomenon, analysis has revealed, is likely the result of magnetic shenanigans – which wouldn't be hugely surprising, given that magnetic field changes play a huge role in all sorts of wacky solar phenomena. …