Sun activity ramping up

Is it possible? Could it be true? The sun's drought of sunspots is coming to a close?

Are we finally starting to see "activity?" Recent indications from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov) seems to be indicating that's the case. Maybe.

Keep in mind folks, the sun usually has something "happening." It is, after all, the largest nuclear fusion reactor we have anywhere near us. Nature's way of lighting up the cosmos. Seething, searing and lately...well...boring!

For those of us who know how, looking at the sun (safely, but more on that later) can be an exciting affair. Sunspots that would dwarf the planet Jupiter, giant filaments of superhot gas extending high off the planet, giant planet-sized "bubbles" of hot plasma boiling to its surface.

Over the last couple of years, though, the sun has been anything but!

It works like this. The sun is essentially just very hot gas. Deep in its core, atoms of hydrogen are squished together to form helium and energy. As the energy of this process makes its long, million-year way out from the center of the sun, it causes the layers of gas above to bubble and boil and generate electrical fields. Like a bar magnet, these fields have a "north" and "south" orientation that generally flips once every 11 years or so. When it does...weird things happen. We see "black spots."

Sunspots aren't really "black" of course. In white light, they're incandescent as the rest of the sun. In a properly filtered view, that means they look "black" compared to the rest of the sun.

In 2002, we experienced the last "peak." However, with every peak there is a valley and this one started about 2006 or 2007 when the last of the previous cycle's "big" sunspots began to fade. And that's where it's got just plain "weird."

Over the last two years, the sun has experienced unusually long periods of "spotlessness." It begs the question...what's going on?

The sun has gone through similarly long periods of low sunspot numbers. But astronomers have only been studying the sun for about 400 years, beginning when Galileo turned his primitive telescope to the sun and projected its bright image onto a white piece of paper.

From 1645 to 1715, the sun experienced a prolonged period without significant numbers of sunspots. During that time, Europe also experienced a "mini ice age" of unusually cold temperatures. Other data has begun to hint that, maybe, there is a link between sunspot activity and climate. Ironically, the sun's brightness actually increases with increased sunspots.

So indications seem to be that the sun is returning to greater activity. But the scientific effort to find answers continue. In the meantime, the hope - at least, for those of us who like to look at the sun - is that we're finally seeing the first of a continuing trend of increased activity.

Can you see it? Well, yes, if you're very careful. It's all about protection because viewing the sun without proper protection WILL result in blindness.

Here's some very UNSAFE methods of viewing the sun: through clouds, smoked glass, film negatives and sunglasses. Safe ways: Proper designed-for-solar viewing "eclipse glasses," Thousand Oaks or other astronomy related solar filters (glass or mylar) or minimum #14 welder's glass.

Failing that, if you own a telescope, there is also eyepiece projection. But make sure it's a telescope and eyepiece combo you didn't spend too much money. The concentrated sunlight from an unfiltered telescope is hot enough to melt tin. The exposed eye would end up in a lot worse condition, to say the least.

Of course, the best way to view the sun now is through websites like SOHO mentioned above, Big Bear Solar Observatory (http://www.bbso.njit.edu/) or even the STEREO spacecraft) http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft.shtml). No special protection required.

Clear and sunny skies!

Morning spectacle

I'm not a morning person.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an understatement. I loathe mornings. Despise 'em. Detest them with a passion usually reserved to animal rights activists towards the cosmetics industry or the relationship between Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper.

But the weather people are calling for clear skies this week. Which means I might just have to, as some of my Facebook friends are fond of saying, "suck it up, buttercup!"

You see, there's some interesting goings-on in our eastern sky these mornings. Mercury, Venus and Saturn have been doing a little planetary dosey-doe with Saturn rising up from it's passage behind the sun to greet the descending Mercury and Venus. Well, Saturn is now passing Venus to within a single binocular field of view for the next few days.

To make things even more interesting, a very thin crescent moon joins the celestial tableau Thursday and Friday mornings. All of this visible less than an hour before sunrise.

These types of groupings are hardly unique, nor are they terribly "significant" in the way that astrologers, etc., would like you to believe. However, they are great because they present great opportunities to delve into the "3D" nature of our solar system.

Consider this...the moon is roughly about 320,000 kms from us. Venus, however, is over 120 million. And Saturn over a billion. To say these scales boggle the mind is a little like saying lightning is going to give you a "jolt!"

So now I'm thinking, there may be a good reason to get up in the morning. But if I do and the weather people are wrong, take note. I'll be...um...VERY annoyed!

Clear skies!

Ready, aim...BOOM!

NASA is taking aim at the moon and zero-hour is fast approaching.

At 7:30 a.m. EDT on Friday, a NASA-launched Atlas 5 rocket upper stage will crash into the southern hemisphere of the moon, in a crater called Cabeus followed by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) probe it launched? Why, you might ask? What has the moon ever done to us?

Well, funnily enough, there are those out there who believe those mysterious "powers that be" who have nothing better to do but cover things up and generally do nasty things to civil liberties and aliens alike, have concocted yet another nasty plan, this time to attack the moon and its requisite alien residents. It took me about three seconds of searching to find this prime example: http://tinyurl.com/ybtzgzj

For the rest of us though, it's about the science and the purpose of this particular experiment is to further confirm the existence of water on the moon.

"Why," you might ask. "Didn't they just say there was water on the moon?" Well, yes they did. However, it never hurts to confirm one observation with another. Besides, the previous methods were generally passive scanning methods. Picking up "signals" of a sort from radiation coming from the moon that tell of water. With this method, material will be "kicked up" by the impact of the two-ton upper stage, followed by the LCROSS probe itself. LCROSS will see the first impact while the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that went up with LCROSS in June will observe the second impact. This is the same LRO that has brought us some stunningly "up close" images of the moon, including photographs of past Apollo sites, including equipment and even tracks left by the astronauts.

Sadly, we're going to miss it here in Ontario since the impact will be occurring just as the sun is coming up. However, professional and amateur telescopes out west will be pointing skyward in a hopes to catch the double plume of debris. Although the impact would theoretically be visible in backyard telescopes, it will still be relatively dim. Amateur astronomers with telescopes 10 inches across and larger are nevertheless being encouraged by NASA to aim their backyard scopes at the moon, just to see what they can see.

It just goes to show that there are still ways that amateur astronomers contribute to the science. Meanwhile, the pros will be scanning the debris cloud with spectrographs to find evidence of water molecules kicked up by the impact.

Needless to say, everyone's going to have something to talk about, come Friday afternoon. Astronomers will be chatting happily about results and what it means to possible human visitation and even colonization of the moon. Conspiracy nuts will be forewarning the coming doom of the "retaliation from the moon." I expect it to be entertaining, either way.

Clear skies!