Archiv: kosmische Strahlung / cosmic rays


26.04.2024 - 02:52 [ Space.com ]

Earth got hammered by cosmic rays 41,000 years ago due to a weak magnetic field

(24 April 2024)

The question is, Do periods of low magnetosphere intensity also correlate with major upheavals in Earth‘s biosphere, the complete zone of our planet over which life exists, ranging from mountaintops to the deepest ocean trenches?

„Understanding these extreme events is important for their occurrence in the future, space climate predictions, and assessing the effects on the environment and on the Earth system,“ Sanja Panovska, a scientist at GFZ Potsdam in Germany, said in a statement.

26.04.2024 - 02:05 [ Science.org ]

A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago

(19 Feb 2021)

Do terrestrial geomagnetic field reversals have an effect on Earth‘s climate? Cooper et al. created a precisely dated radiocarbon record around the time of the Laschamps geomagnetic reversal about 41,000 years ago from the rings of New Zealand swamp kauri trees. This record reveals a substantial increase in the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere culminating during the period of weakening magnetic field strength preceding the polarity switch. The authors modeled the consequences of this event and concluded that the geomagnetic field minimum caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration that drove synchronous global climate and environmental shifts.

(…)

We precisely characterize the geomagnetic reversal and perform global chemistry-climate modeling and detailed radiocarbon dating of paleoenvironmental records to investigate impacts. We find that geomagnetic field minima ~42 ka, in combination with Grand Solar Minima, caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration and circulation, driving synchronous global climate shifts that caused major environmental changes, extinction events, and transformations in the archaeological record.

(…)

In addition, chronological uncertainties are complicated in radiocarbon-dated terrestrial and marine records around the Laschamps because of the elevated production of C and Be, cosmogenic radionuclides resulting from the substantial increase in high-energy cosmic radiation reaching the upper atmosphere. The high Be flux has been well described from Greenland and Antarctic ice core records (6, 20, 21), which reveal synchronous century-long Be peaks across the Laschamps that appear to reflect a series of pronounced Grand Solar Minima (GSM; prolonged periods of low solar activity similar to the Spörer and Maunder Minima: 1410 to 1540 CE and 1645 to 1715 CE), with unknown climate impacts (20, 21).

26.04.2024 - 01:30 [ PRI.org ]

Scientists link Earth’s magnetic reversals to changes in planet’s life and climate

(April 19, 2021)

The researchers examined the rings of the tree to look for changes in the amount of carbon-14 over a period of years, Gramling explains. Carbon-14 is useful not only for dating things, but because the interaction of cosmic rays with molecules in the atmosphere produces a lot of it. And when the Earth has a weakened magnetic field, more cosmic rays hit the planet.

The scientists indeed found a large spike in carbon-14 in the tree, which they could then compare with the rock record that indicated a magnetic reversal. (…)

In addition, there is the documented rise in cave art right about 41,000-42,000 years ago, Gramling points out.

24.04.2023 - 13:21 [ Science.org ]

A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago

(19 Feb 2021)

Do terrestrial geomagnetic field reversals have an effect on Earth‘s climate? Cooper et al. created a precisely dated radiocarbon record around the time of the Laschamps geomagnetic reversal about 41,000 years ago from the rings of New Zealand swamp kauri trees. This record reveals a substantial increase in the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere culminating during the period of weakening magnetic field strength preceding the polarity switch. The authors modeled the consequences of this event and concluded that the geomagnetic field minimum caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration that drove synchronous global climate and environmental shifts.

(…)

We precisely characterize the geomagnetic reversal and perform global chemistry-climate modeling and detailed radiocarbon dating of paleoenvironmental records to investigate impacts. We find that geomagnetic field minima ~42 ka, in combination with Grand Solar Minima, caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration and circulation, driving synchronous global climate shifts that caused major environmental changes, extinction events, and transformations in the archaeological record.

24.04.2023 - 13:16 [ ORF.at ]

Erdmagnetfeld: Polwanderung veränderte das Weltklima

Ungefilterte Strahlung aus dem Weltraum zerriss Luftpartikel in der Erdatmosphäre, trennte Elektronen ab und emittierte Licht. Diese ionisierte Luft brutzelte die Ozonschicht weg, heißt es in einer Presseaussendung zur Studie. In Folge dürften überall auf dem Globus Polarlichter aufgetaucht sein, nicht nur rund um den geographischen Nord- und Südpol wie heute. (…)

Das Erdmagnetfeld schwächelt bereits seit rund 2.000 Jahren wieder. Verglichen mit den ersten direkten Messungen vor 170 Jahren wurde eine Abschwächung um neun Prozent festgestellt, im Bereich des Südatlantiks sogar um dreißig Prozent.

24.04.2023 - 10:52 [ International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) / Cairo University ]

The Shrinking of the Heliosphere Due to Reduced Solar Wind

(2010)

Abstract. The heliosphere is the space within which the solar wind dominates and the solar interplanetary magnetic field prevails. Its boundary is determined by the balance between stellar and solar winds. Owing to the present reduction in the solar wind pressure, one would expect that the stellar wind would push the heliosphere inward leading to its shrinkage. In this paper we calculate the extent of the heliosphere at different solar wind status.

Backward estimation of the extent of the heliosphere since 1890 is done. It is found that the heliosphere oscillated between 75 and 125 AU between 1890 –
2010. Most important is the forecast of the shrinkage and oscillations of the heliosphere and their implications on the earth. The shrinkage of the heliosphere would allow more invasions of cosmic rays to the earth and planets, increased cloud cover and a cooler Earth.

1 Introduction

The heliosphere is the cavity curved by the solar wind into the interstellar medium. Its extension is determined by the equality of the solar wind pressure and the stellar wind pressure. For this reason, we will first study past, present and future status of solar activity and then we will reflect this study into the heliosphere.

24.04.2023 - 10:51 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun‘s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008)

New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago. (…)

„Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment.“

The heliosphere is created by the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields that emanate a more than a million miles an hour from the sun, meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.

26.12.2022 - 06:31 [ Electroverse.co ]

Cold Records Shattered Across Canada, Driving Energy Usage To All-Time Highs; Extreme Freeze Sweeps U.S.; Blizzards Hit Hawaii; + Wintry Weather Traps 300 Oil Workers On North Sea Rig

(December 21, 2022)

As hinted at above, Mauna Loa began erupting on Nov 27 and stopped on Dec 13.

It was the first time it has actively erupted since 1984 (solar minimum of cycle 20) — and is a sign of the times…

Volcanic eruptions are one of the key climatic forcings driving Earth into its next bout of global cooling. They have been shown to increase in both number and explosivity during times of prolonged solar decline, which is thought to be due to an influx of cosmic rays (CRs) penetrating/exciting silica-rich magma. During solar mins the Sun’s magnetic field weakens and the outward pressure of the solar wind decreases, which allows more CRs to enter the inner solar system, including our planet’s atmosphere.

25.10.2021 - 18:59 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Studying the Edge of the Sun’s Magnetic Bubble

(Oct 19, 2021)

The space radiation that comes at us from other stars is called galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). Active areas in the galaxy – like supernovae, black holes, and neutron stars – can strip the electrons from atoms and accelerate the nuclei to almost the speed of light, producing GCR.

On Earth, we have three layers of protection from space radiation. The first is the heliosphere, which helps block GCR from reaching the major planets in the solar system. Additionally, Earth’s magnetic field produces a shield called the magnetosphere, which keeps GCR out away from Earth and low-orbiting satellites like the International Space Station. Finally, the gases of Earth’s atmosphere absorb radiation.

25.10.2021 - 17:04 [ PRI.org ]

Scientists link Earth‘s magnetic reversals to changes in planet‘s life and climate

(April 19, 2021)

The researchers examined the rings of the tree to look for changes in the amount of carbon-14 over a period of years, Gramling explains. Carbon-14 is useful not only for dating things, but because the interaction of cosmic rays with molecules in the atmosphere produces a lot of it. And when the Earth has a weakened magnetic field, more cosmic rays hit the planet.

The scientists indeed found a large spike in carbon-14 in the tree, which they could then compare with the rock record that indicated a magnetic reversal. (…)

In addition, there is the documented rise in cave art right about 41,000-42,000 years ago, Gramling points out.

04.10.2021 - 07:04 [ National Astronomical Observatory of Japan / SciTechdaily.com ]

Interplay Between Magnetic Force and Gravity in Massive Star Formation

(September 26, 2021)

The magnetic field is part of one of the four fundamental forces in nature. It plays a vital role in everyday life, from producing electricity in hydroelectric power plants to diagnosing diseases in medicine. Historically, the Earth’s magnetic field served as a compass for travelers before modern technology was available. Crucially for life, the Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield protecting us from charged particles emanating from the Sun, which are accelerated by the Sun’s magnetic field. Removing this shield would very likely extinguish life on Earth.

20.09.2021 - 05:45 [ PRI.org ]

Scientists link Earth‘s magnetic reversals to changes in planet‘s life and climate

(April 19, 2021)

The researchers examined the rings of the tree to look for changes in the amount of carbon-14 over a period of years, Gramling explains. Carbon-14 is useful not only for dating things, but because the interaction of cosmic rays with molecules in the atmosphere produces a lot of it. And when the Earth has a weakened magnetic field, more cosmic rays hit the planet.

The scientists indeed found a large spike in carbon-14 in the tree, which they could then compare with the rock record that indicated a magnetic reversal. (…)

In addition, there is the documented rise in cave art right about 41,000-42,000 years ago, Gramling points out.

10.08.2021 - 10:48 [ PRI.org ]

Scientists link Earth‘s magnetic reversals to changes in planet‘s life and climate

(April 19, 2021)

The researchers examined the rings of the tree to look for changes in the amount of carbon-14 over a period of years, Gramling explains. Carbon-14 is useful not only for dating things, but because the interaction of cosmic rays with molecules in the atmosphere produces a lot of it. And when the Earth has a weakened magnetic field, more cosmic rays hit the planet.

The scientists indeed found a large spike in carbon-14 in the tree, which they could then compare with the rock record that indicated a magnetic reversal. (…)

In addition, there is the documented rise in cave art right about 41,000-42,000 years ago, Gramling points out.

15.07.2021 - 09:24 [ PRI.org ]

Scientists link Earth‘s magnetic reversals to changes in planet‘s life and climate

(April 19, 2021)

The researchers examined the rings of the tree to look for changes in the amount of carbon-14 over a period of years, Gramling explains. Carbon-14 is useful not only for dating things, but because the interaction of cosmic rays with molecules in the atmosphere produces a lot of it. And when the Earth has a weakened magnetic field, more cosmic rays hit the planet.

The scientists indeed found a large spike in carbon-14 in the tree, which they could then compare with the rock record that indicated a magnetic reversal. (…)

In addition, there is the documented rise in cave art right about 41,000-42,000 years ago, Gramling points out.

15.07.2021 - 08:10 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Surprise: Solar System „Force Field“ Shrinks Fast

(October 1, 2010)

It‘s cold, dusty, and bereft of planets, but the outskirts of our solar system are anything but dull, according to increasing evidence from NASA‘s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) craft.

As charged particles flow out from the sun, they eventually bump up against interstellar medium—the relatively empty areas between stars. These interactions „inflate“ a protective bubble that shields Earth and the entire solar system from potentially harmful cosmic rays (solar system pictures).

15.07.2021 - 08:01 [ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ]

The solar wind bubble that protects Earth has been mapped for the first time

Using data IBEX collected on ENAs as it charted just one 11-year solar cycle, the time between shifts in the sun’s magnetic field, researchers built a three-dimensional map of the entire heliosphere, which Reisenfeld says shields Earth and other planets from harmful radiation.

“Our Earth gets bombarded by cosmic rays, galactic cosmic rays all the time,” he says. These rays can subtly affect airplanes that fly near the poles, often on trips between Europe or Asia and the US.

Scientists say that to study other planet’s astrospheres, which is what heliospheres are called when they surround other stars, we must first understand our own.

21.02.2021 - 13:05 [ ScienceNews.org ]

50 years ago, scientists named Earth’s magnetic field as a suspect in extinctions

(November 19, 2020)

Effects of Earth’s magnetic field — Science News, November 21, 1970

„Earth’s magnetic field has frequently reversed at intervals of 1 million to 100 million years. A few scientists now suspect that these reversals may have had drastic effects on terrestrial life.… During the past 2.5 million years, eight species of one-cell marine animals called Radiolaria became extinct. Six of these extinctions occurred simultaneously throughout their geographic range immediately following magnetic reversals.“

21.02.2021 - 12:40 [ Science Magazine ]

A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago

(19.02.2021)

We find that geomagnetic field minima ~42 ka, in combination with Grand Solar Minima, caused substantial changes in atmospheric ozone concentration and circulation, driving synchronous global climate shifts that caused major environmental changes, extinction events, and transformations in the archaeological record.

21.02.2021 - 12:35 [ CNN ]

Reversal of Earth‘s magnetic poles may have triggered Neanderthal extinction — and it could happen again

(19.02.2021)

Some 42,000 years ago, in an event known as the Laschamp Excursion, the poles did just that for around 800 years, before swapping back — but scientists were unsure exactly how or if it impacted the world.

Now, a team of researchers from Sydney‘s University of New South Wales and the South Australian Museum say the flip, along with changing solar winds, could have triggered an array of dramatic climate shifts leading to environmental change and mass extinctions.

15.09.2020 - 20:05 [ Informationsdienst Wissenschaft ]

P-ONE: Neues Observatorium im Pazifik für hochenergetische kosmische Neutrinos

Astronomen beobachten das Licht, das von entfernten Himmelsobjekten zu uns kommt, um das Universum zu erkunden. Licht verrät jedoch nichts über hochenergetische Ereignisse außerhalb unserer Galaxie, wie etwa über die Jets aktiver galaktischer Kerne, Gammastrahlenausbrüche oder Supernovae. Denn auf ihrem langen Weg durch das Universum verlieren Photonen mit extrem hohen Energien einen Teil ihrer Energie durch Interaktion mit anderen Teilchen.

15.09.2020 - 14:25 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

NASA Researchers Track Slowly Splitting ‚Dent‘ in Earth’s Magnetic Field

(17.08.2020)

Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective shield around the planet, repelling and trapping charged particles from the Sun. But over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean, an unusually weak spot in the field – called the South Atlantic Anomaly, or SAA – allows these particles to dip closer to the surface than normal. Particle radiation in this region can knock out onboard computers and interfere with the data collection of satellites that pass through it – a key reason why NASA scientists want to track and study the anomaly.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is also of interest to NASA’s Earth scientists who monitor the changes in magnetic field strength there, both for how such changes affect Earth‘s atmosphere and as an indicator of what‘s happening to Earth‘s magnetic fields, deep inside the globe.

15.09.2020 - 14:19 [ Sky News ]

NASA investigates mysterious South Atlantic Anomaly

(18.08.2020)

Scientists at NASA are investigating the mysterious South Atlantic Anomaly, a region of weakness in the Earth‘s magnetic field that is growing in size.

On average, the planet‘s magnetic field has lost almost 10% of its strength over the last two centuries – but there is a large localised region of weakness stretching from Africa to South America.

09.08.2020 - 08:07 [ journals.plos.org ]

The Earth’s magnetic field in Jerusalem during the Babylonian destruction: A unique reference for field behavior and an anchor for archaeomagnetic dating

Archaeomagnetism, the application of paleomagnetic methods to archaeological materials, is interdisciplinary not only in its methods but also in its impact. Well-dated archaeological materials are a critical data source for geomagnetic secular variation models [1–6], which are used to explore the dynamic structure of Earth’s core [7, 8], the rates of cosmogenic isotope production in the atmosphere [9–11] and the possible effect of geomagnetism on climate [11–13]. Precise documentation of the ancient field also helps contextualize geomagnetic observations from the modern era, such as the evolution of the South Atlantic Anomaly [14, 15] and the ongoing decline in the field’s intensity [16–18].

09.08.2020 - 08:05 [ Haaretz ]

Ruins of Ancient Jerusalem Help Unravel Enigmas of Earth’s Magnetic Field

Albert Einstein once called the behavior of the magnetic field one of the great mysteries of physics, but understanding and possibly predicting its changes has taken on a new urgency for scientists. The field has lost around 10 percent of its strength since measurements began less than 200 years ago, leading some researchers to question whether we are on the way to a flip in polarity, which would be preceded by a loss of our precious shield against cosmic radiation.

14.05.2020 - 21:31 [ Wired ]

The Science of Temperature Is Weirder Than You Think

One way to transfer energy is with electromagnetic waves. Visible light is one type of electromagnetic radiation; there’s also infrared, x-rays, gamma rays. These are all the same type of waves but with different wavelengths. And they can all transfer energy.

14.05.2020 - 20:55 [ Unilad.co.uk ]

The Sun Has Entered ‘Very Deep’ Solar Minimum

(today)

While these things are still ongoing debates, one thing that NASA did find to happen during solar minimum was an increased number of galactic cosmic rays that reach Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Galactic cosmic rays are high energy particles accelerated toward the solar system by distant supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy.

22.01.2020 - 22:45 [ Forbes.com ]

Is Earth’s Magnetic Shield Eroding?

(29.3.2018)

The strength of Earth’s main magnetic field is currently about 29.5 microteslas, down 5 microteslas, or 14 percent from its strength three centuries ago.

We know this. There is no question of this.

02.01.2020 - 16:44 [ Gizmodo.com ]

Pluto Is Emitting X-Rays, and That’s Really Weird

(16.09.2016)

The most likely explanation, according to Wolk, is that high energy particles from the solar wind are colliding with escaped bits of Pluto’s atmosphere—which is mostly nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen—stripping away electrons, and producing an x-ray flare. If true, that’s a very important insight, because it means Pluto’s atmosphere is boiling away into space. Slowly.

02.01.2020 - 16:39 [ HNGN.com ]

Sun’s Magnetic Field To ‚Flip‘ Causing ‚A Ripple Effect‘ Past Pluto (VIDEO)

(06.08.2013)

The polar switch also affects cosmic rays, which can endanger satellites and astronauts. Disturbances in the rays could even affect Earth’s climate.

The sheet acts as a „shield“ against these rays, and a wavy current sheet can be even more effective.

02.01.2020 - 10:32 [ CNN ]

Earth‘s magnetic north pole is heading for Russia and scientists are puzzled

(18.12.2019)

A weakened magnetic field allows more cosmic radiation from space to strike our atmosphere, which creates more beryllium.

The actual reversal took less than 4,000 years — a drop in the bucket when compared to Earth‘s timeline so far. But leading up to that reversal were 18,000 years of instability, including two temporary and partial reversals. This is twice as long as expected.

22.11.2019 - 20:08 [ CBS News ]

Spacewalkers press ahead with space station cosmic ray detector repair

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer was designed to detect high-energy cosmic rays in long-term research to learn what happened to the antimatter presumably cooked up in the big bang. It also is looking for clues about the nature of unseen dark matter and the equally mysterious dark energy that is speeding up the expansion of the universe.

15.11.2019 - 18:07 [ Tuan Do, Astronomer at UCLA ‏/ Twitter ]

Here‘s a timelapse of images over 2.5 hr from May from @keckobservatory of the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. The black hole is always variable, but this was the brightest we‘ve seen in the infrared so far. It was probably even brighter before we started observing that night!

15.11.2019 - 18:04 [ arxiv.org ]

Unprecedented variability of Sgr A* in NIR

(05.08.2019)

The electromagnetic counterpart to the Galactic center supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, has been observed in the near-infrared for over 20 years and is known to be highly variable. We report new Keck Telescope observations showing that Sgr A* reached much brighter flux levels in 2019 than ever measured at near-infrared wavelengths. In the K$^\prime$ band, Sgr A* reached flux levels of $\sim6$ mJy, twice the level of the previously observed peak flux from $>13,000$ measurements over 130 nights with the VLT and Keck Telescopes. We also observe a factor of 75 change in flux over a 2-hour time span with no obvious color changes between 1.6 $\mu$m and 2.1 $\mu$m.

15.11.2019 - 18:00 [ universetoday.com ]

Milky Way’s Black Hole Just Flared, Growing 75 Times as Bright for a Few Hours

(13.08.2019)

Even though the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is a monster, it’s still rather quiet. Called Sagittarius A*, it’s about 4.6 million times more massive than our Sun. Usually, it’s a brooding behemoth. But scientists observing Sgr. A* with the Keck Telescope just watched as its brightness bloomed to over 75 times normal for a few hours.

15.11.2019 - 17:58 [ Space.com ]

Something Weird Is Happening to the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way

(15.08.2019)

Astronomers have been watching the black hole at the center of our galaxy for 20 years, and in May, they saw something they‘d never seen before.

15.11.2019 - 17:47 [ arxiv.org ]

The large-scale ionization cones in the Galaxy

(05.10.2019)

Our time-dependent Seyfert flare models adequately explain the observations and indicate the Seyfert flare event took place T_o = 3.5 +/- 1 Myr ago.

15.11.2019 - 17:32 [ ScienceAlert.com ]

Something in The Centre of Our Galaxy Colossally Erupted 3.5 Million Years Ago

(06.10.2019)

In 2013, astrophysicist Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) and colleagues estimated that the event occurred between 1 and 3 million years ago.

Now, more observations taken using the Hubble Space Telescope – and therefore a bigger dataset – have provided even more compelling evidence for the event. And the team has been able to narrow down a timeframe for both when the event occurred, as well as its duration.

15.11.2019 - 17:29 [ arxiv.org ]

Fossil imprint of a powerful flare at the Galactic Centre along the Magellanic Stream

(21.09.2013)

Thus it is likely that the Stream emission arose from a `Seyfert flare‘ that was active 1-3 Myr ago, consistent with the cosmic ray lifetime in the Fermi bubbles. Sgr A* activity today is greatly suppressed (70-80 dB) relative to the Seyfert outburst…

15.11.2019 - 17:16 [ Forbes ]

The Milky Way‘s Supermassive Black Hole Erupted Two Million Years Ago

(25.09.2013)

The key the astronomers found was actually discovered 20 years old, in the form of a strange glow that astronomers had noticed in the Magellanic Stream. The Magellanic Stream is composed of large clouds of gas – mostly hydrogen – that stretch for light years in the wake of the Milky Way‘s two companion Galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The Stream is about 2 billion years old.

„We didn‘t understand the cause. Then suddenly we realised it must be the mark, the fossil record, of a huge outburst of energy from the centre of our Galaxy,“ remarked researcher Joss Bland-Hawthorn in a press release.

04.11.2019 - 19:38 [ ScienceNews.org ]

Voyager 2 reveals the dynamic, complex nature of the solar system’s edge

Despite encountering the heliopause at different times and locations — the two spacecraft are farther from each other than each are from the sun — some things looked similar. The magnetic field looked pretty much the same on the inside and the outside of the boundary: Somehow, the sun’s magnetic field lines up nearly perfectly with the local galactic field, contrary to expectations. “We could dismiss that as coincidence in one case, but we can’t do that twice,” study coauthor Leonard Burlaga, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in the news conference.

04.11.2019 - 19:30 [ Nature ]

Energetic charged particle measurements from Voyager 2 at the heliopause and beyond

Here, we report measurements of energetic (>28 keV) charged particles on V2 from the interface region between the heliosheath, dominated by heated solar wind plasma, and the VLISM, expected to contain cold non-solar plasma and the Galactic magnetic field. The number of particles of solar origin began a gradual decrease on 7 August 2018 (118.2 au), while those of Galactic origin (Galactic cosmic rays) increased ~20% in number over a period of a few weeks. An abrupt change occurred on 5 November when V2 was located at 119 au, with a decrease in the number of particles at energies of >28 keV and a corresponding increase in the number of Galactic cosmic rays of energy E > 213 MeV. T

01.11.2019 - 06:33 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun’s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008)

The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

01.11.2019 - 06:23 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Pressure Runs High at Edge of Solar System

(08.10.2019)

The scientists noted that the change in galactic cosmic rays wasn’t exactly identical at both spacecraft. At Voyager 2 inside the heliosheath, the number of cosmic rays decreased in all directions around the spacecraft. But at Voyager 1, outside the solar system, only the galactic cosmic rays that were traveling perpendicular to the magnetic field in the region decreased.

01.11.2019 - 06:17 [ Sciencealert.com ]

Voyager Mission Reveals Unexpected Pressure at The Edge of The Solar System

(10.10.2019)

There was one other surprise to come. The wave‘s passage lined up with an apparent drop in the intensity of high speed particles called cosmic rays. The fact each of the probes experienced this same thing in two different ways gives astrophysicists yet another mystery to solve.

„Trying to understand why the change in the cosmic rays is different inside and outside of the heliosheath remains an open question,“ says Rankin.

01.11.2019 - 06:03 [ EOS.org ]

What Inflates the Solar Bubble? Voyagers Count What’s Missing

(17.10.2019)

We’re all living in a bubble.

In fact, the Sun and the entire solar system exist in a bubble that separates us from interstellar space. But what keeps that bubble inflated? A recent paper found that scientists can account for only 82% of the pressure that steadies the solar bubble, or heliosphere, against pressure from galactic headwinds. The source of 18% of the pressure is still unknown.

25.09.2019 - 19:31 [ Forbes.com ]

Is Earth’s Magnetic Shield Eroding?

(29.3.2018)

The strength of Earth’s main magnetic field is currently about 29.5 microteslas, down 5 microteslas, or 14 percent from its strength three centuries ago.

We know this. There is no question of this.

25.09.2019 - 19:23 [ Phys.org ]

Strong planetary magnetic fields like Earth‘s may protect oceans from stellar storms

(14.03.2019)

„Magnetic fields appear to play an essential role in making planets habitable, so I wanted to find out how Earth‘s magnetic field compared to those of other potentially habitable planets,“ she said.

Ms McIntyre said Earth‘s strong magnetic field had probably played an important role in protecting the atmosphere from the solar wind and keeping the planet wet and habitable.

„Venus and Mars have negligible magnetic fields and do not support life, while Earth‘s magnetic field is relatively strong and does,“ she said.

25.09.2019 - 19:19 [ NASA ‏/ Twitter ]

Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a magnetic field to shield its atmosphere from solar wind:

(05.11.2015)

25.09.2019 - 19:12 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Rewind the Red Planet: See the Surprising Ways Mars Has Changed in 3 Billion Years

(21.11.2016)

Mars today is a chilly desert. But ancient landscapes reveal a times when water may have flowed freely. Scroll to see how the red planet has evolved

25.09.2019 - 18:56 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Why doesn‘t Venus have a magnetic field ?

Current theories of the formation and evolution of the terrestrial planets do support an Earth scale magnetic dipole (magnetic field) on Venus for perhaps the first billion years or so after formation.

25.09.2019 - 18:47 [ European Planetary Science Congress / American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences ]

A view to the possible habitability of ancient Venus over three billion years

(20.09.2019)

The long-term evolutionary history of Venus’ climate largely remains a mystery.

11.08.2019 - 14:14 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun

(15.07.2019)

Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one‘s timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare. Strangely, besides that fake spot, in this recent two-image composite, the Sun lacked any real sunspots. The featured picture combines two images — one capturing the space station transiting the Sun — and another taken consecutively capturing details of the Sun‘s surface. Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. For reasons not yet fully understood, the number of sunspots occurring during both the previous and current solar minima have been unusually low.

11.08.2019 - 14:03 [ Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) ]

Solar Cycle 25: May Be The Smallest In Over 300 Years

(26.01.2012)

Livingston and Penn provided the first hard estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude based on a physical model. That estimate is 7, which would make it the smallest solar cycle for over 300 years.

This is figure 2 from their paper:

Livingston and Penn have been tracking the decline in sunspot magnetic field, predicting that sunspots will disappear when the umbral magnetic field strength falls below 1,500 gauss, as per this figure from their 2010 paper:

11.08.2019 - 13:58 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Sun Headed Into Hibernation, Solar Studies Predict: Sunspots may disappear altogether in next cycle.

(14.06.2011)

This time, however, the rush to the poles is more of a crawl, which means we could be headed toward a very weak solar maximum in 2013—and it may delay or even prevent the start of the next solar cycle.

Taken together, the three lines of evidence strongly hint that Solar Cycle 25 may be a bust, the scientists said today during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

11.08.2019 - 13:45 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Long Range Solar Forecast: Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.

(10.05.2006)

How do you observe a belt that plunges 200,000 km below the surface of the sun?

„We do it using sunspots,“ Hathaway explains. Sunspots are magnetic knots that bubble up from the base of the conveyor belt, eventually popping through the surface of the sun. Astronomers have long known that sunspots have a tendency to drift—from mid solar latitudes toward the sun‘s equator. According to current thinking, this drift is caused by the motion of the conveyor belt. „By measuring the drift of sunspot groups,“ says Hathaway, „we indirectly measure the speed of the belt.“

11.08.2019 - 13:22 [ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.gov) ]

Space Weather Impacts On Climate

All weather on Earth, from the surface of the planet out into space, begins with the Sun. Space weather and terrestrial weather (the weather we feel at the surface) are influenced by the small changes the Sun undergoes during its solar cycle.

(…)

The duration of solar minimum may also have an impact on Earth‘s climate. During solar minimum there is a maximum in the amount of Cosmic rays, high energy particles whose source is outside our Solar system, reaching earth. There is a theory that cosmic rays can create nucleation sites in the atmosphere which seed cloud formation and create cloudier conditions. If this were true, then there would be a significant impact on climate, which would be modulated by the 11-year solar cycle.

05.06.2019 - 20:00 [ Phys.org ]

Earth‘s magnetic poles could start to flip. What happens then?

(07.12.2018)

‚The geomagnetic field has been decaying for the last 3,000 years,‘ said Dr. Nicolas Thouveny from the European Centre for Research and Teaching of Environmental Geosciences (CEREGE) in Aix-en-Provence, France. ‚If it continues to fall down at this rate, in less than one millennium we will be in a critical (period).‘

05.06.2019 - 19:41 [ Metro.co.uk ]

The sun has ‘reached solar minimum’ and its surface is ominously calm

But Nasa images have revealed that the face of our star is looking ominously calm right now, prompting claims it’s reached a stage of its cycle called the solar minimum.

During the minimum, there are significantly fewer sunspots and its magnetic field weakens, allowing cosmic rays from outside our solar system to rain down on Earth.

30.05.2019 - 16:24 [ scitecheuropa.eu ]

Solving a century-long mystery: the origin of galactic cosmic rays

(04.04.2019)

The word ‘astronomy’ means the direct observations of extra-terrestrial objects. This definition is relevant to photons, neutrinos, and gravitational waves, i.e. massless, neutral and stable particles. But for cosmic ray electrons, protons, and nuclei, the term ‘astronomy’ is used with a certain reservation. Because of the deflections of electrically charged particles in the chaotic interstellar and intergalactic magnetic fields, the information about their original directions pointing to the sites of their production is lost. Instead, on the Earth, we detect an (almost) isotropic flux of cosmic rays contributed by a huge number of galactic and extragalactic sources.

30.05.2019 - 16:11 [ arxiv.org ]

Hypothesis: Muon Radiation Dose and Marine Megafaunal Extinction at the end-Pliocene Supernova

(November 2018)

Considerable data and analysis support the detection of one or more supernovae (SNe) at a distance of about 50 pc, ∼2.6 million years ago. This is possibly related to the extinction event around that time and is a member of a series of explosions that formed the Local Bubble in the interstellar medium. We build on previous work, and propagate the muon flux from SN-initiated cosmic rays from the surface to the depths of the ocean. We find that the radiation dose from the muons will exceed the total present surface dose from all sources at depths up to 1 km and will persist for at least the lifetime of marine megafauna. It is reasonable to hypothesize that this increase in radiation load may have contributed to a newly documented marine megafaunal extinction at that time.

30.05.2019 - 15:55 [ New York Times ]

STUDY HINTS EXTINCTIONS STRIKE IN SET INTERVALS

(11. Dezember 1983)

At a conference on mass extinctions, held in August at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Dr. Sepkoski said the timing of these events suggested that “there is indeed a statistically significant periodicity in the observed distribution of events of mass or accelerated extinction over the last 250 million years.“ Search for Answers

He confessed this “stumped“ him and Dr. Raup, saying: “We are aware of no documented process with a cycling time approximately 26 million years. But with that long a cycle, we suspect that the forcing agent will not be terrestrial but rather solar or galactic.“

30.05.2019 - 15:49 [ Harvard.edu ]

Cosmic-ray volleys from the Galactic Center and their recent impact on the earth environment

Authors: Laviolette, P. A.
Journal: Earth, Moon, and Planets (ISSN 0167-9295), vol. 37, March 1987, p. 241-286.

25.05.2019 - 15:09 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Surprise: Solar System „Force Field“ Shrinks Fast

(01.10.2010)

„If we’ve learned anything from IBEX so far, it is that the models that we’re using for interaction of the solar wind with the galaxy were just dead wrong,“ David McComas, principal investigator for the IBEX program, said during a NASA press conference Thursday.

For starters, it’s been assumed that the heliosphere’s expansion and contraction follows the sun’s roughly 11-year activity cycle, during which the flow rate of charged particles, or solar wind, fluctuates.

25.05.2019 - 14:49 [ voyager.jpl.nasa.gov ]

NASA Voyager 2 Could Be Nearing Interstellar Space

(05.10.2018)

NASA‘s Voyager 2 probe, currently on a journey toward interstellar space, has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system.

25.05.2019 - 14:49 [ scitechdaily.com ]

NASA Voyager 2 Nearing Interstellar Space, Measures Increase in Cosmic Rays

(06.10.2018)

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe, currently on a journey toward interstellar space, has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system.

25.05.2019 - 14:36 [ NASA Solar System ‏/ Twitter ]

The Space Between: interstellar space is often called the space between the stars, but more specifically, it’s the region between our Sun’s heliosphere and the astrospheres of other stars. Find out how that works

(27.03.2019)

25.05.2019 - 14:15 [ Institut für Astrophysik an der Universität Göttingen ]

Physikalische Grundlagen des Weltraumwetters – Die Heliosphäre

(2011) Variation der kosmischen Strahlung mit dem Sonnenzyklus

25.05.2019 - 13:27 [ HNGN.com ]

Sun‘s Magnetic Field To ‚Flip‘ Causing ‚A Ripple Effect‘ Past Pluto (VIDEO)

(06.08.2013)

The polar switch also affects cosmic rays, which can endanger satellites and astronauts. Disturbances in the rays could even affect Earth‘s climate.

The sheet acts as a „shield“ against these rays, and a wavy current sheet can be even more effective.

25.05.2019 - 13:09 [ Gizmodo.com ]

Pluto Is Emitting X-Rays, and That‘s Really Weird

(16.09.2016)

The most likely explanation, according to Wolk, is that high energy particles from the solar wind are colliding with escaped bits of Pluto’s atmosphere—which is mostly nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen—stripping away electrons, and producing an x-ray flare. If true, that’s a very important insight, because it means Pluto’s atmosphere is boiling away into space. Slowly.

(…)

Clearly, more research is needed to figure out exactly why Pluto’s atmosphere is leaky, and what’s responsible.

29.04.2019 - 10:51 [ Phys.org ]

Scientists predict sun‘s activity will be weak during next solar cycle

(8. April 2019)

„We expect Solar Cycle 25 will be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak cycle, preceded by a long, deep minimum,“ said panel co-chair Lisa Upton, Ph.D., solar physicist with Space Systems Research Corp. „The expectation that Cycle 25 will be comparable in size to Cycle 24 means that the steady decline in solar cycle amplitude, seen from cycles 21-24, has come to an end and that there is no indication that we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity.“

14.04.2019 - 19:50 [ Washington Post ]

Scientists predict a new solar cycle is about to begin and that it might be stronger than the last one

(11. April 2019)

The decline in sunspot activity through cycle 24 was worrisome to some space weather scientists in that it suggested a return to a lengthy “solar drought,” reminiscent of the Maunder Minimum period of 1645-1715. Records show the sun was essentially spotless for this lengthy period, coinciding with the “Little Ice Age” in Europe and tickling the interest of scientists to wonder whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between solar behavior and Earth’s climate.

14.04.2019 - 19:47 [ Phys.org ]

Scientists predict sun‘s activity will be weak during next solar cycle

(8. April 2019)

„We expect Solar Cycle 25 will be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak cycle, preceded by a long, deep minimum,“ said panel co-chair Lisa Upton, Ph.D., solar physicist with Space Systems Research Corp. „The expectation that Cycle 25 will be comparable in size to Cycle 24 means that the steady decline in solar cycle amplitude, seen from cycles 21-24, has come to an end and that there is no indication that we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity.“

14.04.2019 - 19:46 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

(23. September 2008)

In a briefing today at NASA headquarters, solar physicists announced that the solar wind is losing power.

„The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s,“ says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. „This is the weakest it‘s been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago.“

14.04.2019 - 18:54 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun’s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008)

The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

14.04.2019 - 18:33 [ onlinelibrary.wiley.com ]

Die Heliosphäre – Schutzschild für die Erde

(Physikalische Blätter 57, 2001)

Die als Heliosphäre weit in den interplanetaren Raum reichende Sonnenatmosphäre schützt die Erde und die anderen Planeten vor der energiereichen kosmischen Strahlung. Dieser Schutzschild unterliegt jedoch langfristigen Veränderungen mit gravierenden Auswirkungen auf die Erdumgebung. Ursache sind die mit dem Sonnenzyklus verbundenen Änderungen des Magnetfeldes der Sonne, die Variabilität des Sonnenwindes sowie Änderungen in der interstellaren Umgebung der Sonne. Einige dieser Vorgänge werden hier zusammen mit den Grundbegriffen der Physik der Heliosphäre beschrieben.

14.04.2019 - 18:14 [ Wikipedia ]

Interplanetares Magnetfeld: Wechselwirkung mit anderen Magnetfeldern

Der Sonnenwind wechselwirkt mit den Magnetfeldern der Planeten wie der Erde und dem Jupiter und begrenzt deren Magnetosphären durch eine Schockfront. Für die äußerste Zone des Sonnensystems gibt es Hinweise auf eine ähnliche Begrenzung der Heliosphäre mit vergleichbarem Aufbau von Plasmaschicht (Heliohülle) und Heliopause an der Grenze zum interstellaren Raum.

14.04.2019 - 18:11 [ derStandard.at ]

Die Sonne lässt das Erdmagnetfeld wie eine Trommel schwingen

(18.2.2019)

Seit rund zwölf Jahren sind Satelliten der Nasa im All unterwegs, um im Rahmen der Mission Themis die Wechselwirkungen zwischen dem Sonnenwind und dem Erdmagnetfeld in räumlicher und zeitlicher Auflösung zu untersuchen.

14.04.2019 - 18:06 [ Heise.de ]

„Da passiert etwas Seltsames“: Position des magnetischen Nordpols aktualisiert

(5.2.2019)

Zu den Hintergründen der Positionsverschiebungen des magnetischen Nordpols gibt es derzeit nur Theorien.

14.04.2019 - 17:52 [ Europäische Weltraumagentur ]

SWARM: IM FORMATIONSFLUG DURCH DAS ERDMAGNETFELD (SPECIAL)

(20.11.2013)

Klar ist: Zwischen den äußeren Einflüssen und den irdischen Magnetfeldänderungen verbergen sich vielschichtige, schwer fassbare Prozesse. In jüngster Zeit setzte sich die Erkenntnis durch, dass alles noch wesentlich komplizierter ist, als man es je vermutet hätte. Weil alles mit allem zusammenhängt.

14.04.2019 - 17:38 [ Tagesspiegel.de ]

Satellitenschwarm: „Swarm“ soll schwächelndes Magnetfeld vermessen

(20.11.2013)

Ohne das Magnetfeld gäbe es kein Leben auf der Erde. Zumindest keine höher entwickelten Pflanzen, Tiere und uns Menschen. Der unsichtbare Schild, der weit über den Planeten hinausragt, schützt vor kosmischer Strahlung und geladenen Teilchen, die die Sonne herausschleudert. Erst durch ihn konnte eine stabile Atmosphäre entstehen, in der sich das Leben entfaltet. Doch der Schild wird schwächer, in den vergangenen 150 Jahren um rund 15 Prozent.

29.03.2019 - 10:02 [ Forbes ]

Earth‘s Magnetic North Pole Has Officially Moved

Earth‘s magnetic North Pole has drifted so fast that authorities have had to officially redefine the location of the magnetic North Pole. The extreme wandering of the North Pole caused increasing concerns over navigation, especially in high latitudes.

29.03.2019 - 08:41 [ Nature.com ]

Earth’s magnetic field is acting up and geologists don’t know why

(9.1.2019)

Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move.

29.03.2019 - 08:25 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Sun Is Moving Slower Than Thought

(12.5.2012)

„Having learned for nearly three decades about it, I was literally shocked when we found it was missing.“

(…)

Still, considering the rays‘ expected effects, Redfield said, „it seems obvious to me that there will be scenarios or times when the cosmic-ray flux on a planet is important and [is] having a major influence on the evolution of the planetary atmosphere or even on biological processes on its surface.“

29.03.2019 - 08:23 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Surprise: Solar System „Force Field“ Shrinks Fast

(1.10.2010)

„If we‘ve learned anything from IBEX so far, it is that the models that we‘re using for interaction of the solar wind with the galaxy were just dead wrong,“ David McComas, principal investigator for the IBEX program, said during a NASA press conference Thursday.

For starters, it‘s been assumed that the heliosphere‘s expansion and contraction follows the sun‘s roughly 11-year activity cycle, during which the flow rate of charged particles, or solar wind, fluctuates.

26.12.2018 - 06:18 [ KBS ]

Südkoreanischer Satellit an US-Stützpunkt gestartet

Insgesamt 64 Satelliten seien ins All befördert worden, darunter der südkoreanische Beobachtungssatellit Next Sat-1.

Next Sat-1 vom Koreanischen Fortschrittsinstitut für Wissenschaft und Technologie wird eine Umlaufbahn in einer Höhe von 575 Kilometern erreichen. Dort soll er in den kommenden zwei Jahren die kosmische Strahlung messen und die Infrarotstrahlung von Sternen beobachten.

08.12.2018 - 15:25 [ Resonance.is ]

Is our solar system heating up?

With the decrease of solar activity, the magnetic field of oursun is losing power too. This heliosphere shields us forming a gigantic bubble which surrounds and protects our solar system from harmful galactic cosmic rays, these high-energy particles that zip through the universe. Thanks to Voyagers 1 leaving the Solar system, we now have a good vision of it and of its shielding effect. It appears to be an indispensable protection for our fast moving throughout the Universe. But, with a weaker heliosphere Earth will begin to endure more and more the cosmic rays.

08.12.2018 - 15:19 [ ScienceMag.com ]

Decades-Long Changes of the Interstellar Wind Through Our Solar System

(6.9.2013) The flow of interstellar gas and dust through the solar system was thought to be unvarying, but Frisch et al. (p. 1080) show that there has been a significant variation of the direction of the flow of interstellar helium through the solar system over the past 40 years.

08.12.2018 - 15:14 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun’s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008) The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

20.11.2018 - 15:45 [ NASA Goddard / Youtube ]

NASA | Thermonuclear Art – The Sun In Ultra-HD (4K)

Presented in ultra-high definition, the video presents the dance of the ultra-hot material on our life-giving star in extraordinary detail, offering an intimate view of the grand forces of the solar system.

20.11.2018 - 15:35 [ NASASolarSystem / Youtube ]

Voyager Satellites Find Magnetic Bubbles at Edge of Solar System

(9.11.2011) This ribbon shows the emission of energetic particles and seems to indicate some interaction with interstellar space.

20.11.2018 - 15:33 [ NASA Goddard / Youtube ]

Understanding the Magnetic Sun

(29.1.2016) Grasping what drives that magnetic system is crucial for understanding the nature of space throughout the solar system: The sun’s invisible magnetic field is responsible for everything from the solar explosions that cause space weather on Earth – such as auroras – to the interplanetary magnetic field and radiation through which our spacecraft journeying around the solar system must travel.

20.11.2018 - 15:05 [ Forbes.com ]

Is Earth‘s Magnetic Shield Eroding?

(29.3.2018) The strength of Earth’s main magnetic field is currently about 29.5 microteslas, down 5 microteslas, or 14 percent from its strength three centuries ago.

We know this. There is no question of this.

20.11.2018 - 14:47 [ Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ]

The Case of Earth‘s Incredible Shrinking Field

(1.11.2006) Earth’s magnetic field has been monitored carefully since the 1830s, when the German polymath Karl Friedrich Gauss invented a way to measure its intensity. Since then, the field has decayed at the ­startling rate of about 5 percent per century

20.11.2018 - 14:44 [ Frankfurter Rundschau ]

Erdmagnetfeld: Der Schutzschild schwächelt

(16.12.2010) Wie ein unsichtbares Netz umgibt das Erdmagnetfeld unseren Planeten und schützt ihn vor energiereichen Teilchen aus dem Weltraum. Doch seit langem verliert es kontinuierlich an Stärke, in manchen Regionen um bis zu vier Prozent pro Jahrzehnt. Würde der Magnetschirm durchlässig, so hätte dies negative Auswirkungen auf das Klima und die Biosphäre. Bei starken Teilchenstürmen von der Sonne könnte es zu Ausfällen in den irdischen Elektrizitätsnetzen und der Satellitenkommunikation kommen. Geophysiker kennen jedoch weder die Ursache für das Schwinden des Feldes, noch können sie die weitere Entwicklung vorhersagen.

20.11.2018 - 13:16 [ CBNcom ]

Something‘s Happening to the Sun Right Now, Here‘s What It Means for Earth

(13.11.2018) If the trend continues, the NASA scientist says we could see record cold in a matter of months.

„The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It‘s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,“ Mlynczak said.

20.11.2018 - 13:15 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

Sept. 23, 2008: In a briefing today at NASA headquarters, solar physicists announced that the solar wind is losing power.

„The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s,“ says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. „This is the weakest it‘s been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago.“

20.11.2018 - 13:13 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun’s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008) The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

20.11.2018 - 13:08 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Excitement Increases as Voyager 2 sees a decrease in Heliospheric Particles

(14.11.2018) In the following graph of the Low Energy Telescope data, right around the beginning of November, you’ll notice a pretty dramatic change: All of a sudden, the Voyager 2 counting rate of low-energy particles dropped, although it hasn’t yet dropped to nearly zero as it did when Voyager 1 entered interstellar space. Scientists will keep their eye on these graphs …

20.11.2018 - 13:05 [ NASA Sun & Space ‏/ Twitter ]

Excitement goes up ? as @NASAVoyager 2‘s count of heliospheric particles goes down These low-energy particles originate within the Sun’s bubble of magnetic influence — the heliosphere — and their count should drop to near-zero in interstellar space:

(17.11.2018)

20.11.2018 - 12:55 [ Forbes.com ]

What Caused That Spooky And Impossible Fire In The Atlantic Ocean?

(31.10.2018) There was no fire; it was a radiation phantom, playing tricks with the satellite’s highly sensitive instruments.

As Voiland’s piece notes, algorithms are designed to filter out these curiosities, but every now and then, a few can slip through, resulting in some rather fascinating ghosts in the machine.

20.11.2018 - 12:45 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

A Fire in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean?

(14.7.2017) “It is almost certainly SAMA,” Oliva said, using an acronym for the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. This weakness in Earth’s magnetic field, centered over South America and the South Atlantic, allows one of Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts—zones of energetic particles trapped by the magnetic field—to dip closer to the atmosphere. As a result, much of South America and part of the South Atlantic Ocean get an extra dose of radiation.

20.11.2018 - 12:40 [ Scienceblogs.com ]

Why the Earth wears an Antimatter Belt!

(9.8.2011) The Earth‘s magnetic field — the same field that causes your compass needle to point North — extends far out into space, and shields us from the high-energy, charged particles that come from not only the Sun, but also from powerful galactic and extra-galactic sources!

The Solar Wind, however, would by far be the most deadly to us, were it not for this magnetic „shield“ that the Earth produces.

20.11.2018 - 12:23 [ qrz.com ]

A new solar index number is being published – Thermosphere Climate Index

(1.10.2018) Hi Everybody;

As the sun plummets into the solar minimum a new index is derived to measure the total energy budget of the planet.

20.11.2018 - 12:20 [ spaceweatherarchive.com ]

The Chill of Solar Minimum

(27.9.2018) As 2018 comes to an end, the Thermosphere Climate Index is on the verge of setting a Space Age record for Cold. “We’re not there quite yet,” says Mlynczak, “but it could happen in a matter of months.”

20.11.2018 - 12:18 [ Phys.org ]

Solar activity is declining—what to expect?

(17.8.2015) The solar cycle is the periodic change in the Sun‘s activity and appearance like changes in the number of sunspots. It has an average duration of about 11 years. The current solar cycle began on in January 2008, with minimal activity until early 2010. The sun is now on track to have the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750.

08.10.2018 - 22:52 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun’s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008) The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

08.10.2018 - 22:38 [ Space.com ]

Discovery of a Cosmic-Ray Source Is a Triumph of ‚Multimessenger Astronomy‘

(12.7.2018) As early as the 1780s, French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb noticed that charged particles were neutralizing the electric charge of some of his experiments. In 1912, Austrian scientist Victor Hess first demonstrated that these particles were arriving from space.

08.10.2018 - 21:58 [ Arxiv.org ]

10 Dec 2008: The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detector Design, Performance, and Sensitivity for 2006-2007 Balloon Flight

This leads to strong motivations to detect the BZ neutrino flux: first, it is required by standard model physics, and thus its absence could signal new physics beyond the standard model.

08.10.2018 - 21:38 [ ScienceMag.org ]

Oddball particles tunneling through Earth could point to new physics

(27.9.2018) However, twice, during its first flight 2006 and its third flight in 2014, ANITA detected odd radio waves with unflipped polarizations coming up from the surface below instead of the horizon. That suggests the signals were produced by upward-zooming air showers triggered by particles that tunneled through Earth. At first blush, that’s not a problem for the standard model. Neutrinos barely interact with matter, so a couple of cosmic neutrinos might have barreled through the planet before smacking an atomic nucleus in the ice and setting off an upward air shower.

08.10.2018 - 21:05 [ V3.co.uk ]

NASA‘s Voyager 2 probe detects increase in cosmic rays as it approaches the heliosphere

Cosmic rays are fast-moving particles that originate outside the solar system. Some of these cosmic rays are blocked by the heliosphere, so mission planners expect that Voyager 2 will measure an increase in the rate of cosmic rays as it approaches and crosses the boundary of the heliosphere.

08.10.2018 - 21:01 [ Outerplaces.com ]

NASA‘s Voyager 2 Probe Is About To Slip Beyond The Boundaries Of Our Solar System And Into Interstellar Space

Voyager 2 began it‘s journey away from Earth back in 1977 and is roughly 11 billion miles from home. In 2007 it entered the outermost layer of the heliosphere, and now based on data recorded by the probe‘s Cosmic Ray Subsystem instrument, NASA scientists say there‘s a good chance that it is about to reach the boundary (known as the heliopause) and join Voyager 1 in the history books as the second human-made object to go interstellar. Back in August, the cosmic rays hitting the probe increased by five percent.

01.10.2018 - 20:38 [ Resonance.is ]

Is our solar system heating up?

With the decrease of solar activity, the magnetic field of oursun is losing power too. This heliosphere shields us forming a gigantic bubble which surrounds and protects our solar system from harmful galactic cosmic rays, these high-energy particles that zip through the universe. Thanks to Voyagers 1 leaving the Solar system, we now have a good vision of it and of its shielding effect. It appears to be an indispensable protection for our fast moving throughout the Universe. But, with a weaker heliosphere Earth will begin to endure more and more the cosmic rays.

01.10.2018 - 20:31 [ ScienceMag.com ]

Decades-Long Changes of the Interstellar Wind Through Our Solar System

(6.9.2013) The flow of interstellar gas and dust through the solar system was thought to be unvarying, but Frisch et al. (p. 1080) show that there has been a significant variation of the direction of the flow of interstellar helium through the solar system over the past 40 years.

29.09.2018 - 15:44 [ Focus.de ]

Die gefährliche Reise der Erde durch die Milchstraße

(24.02.2012) Hinzu kamen energiereiche Protonen, die als kosmische Strahlung ebenfalls die Erde erreichten und die Lebewesen am Boden und in den Meeren schädigten. Das Strahlenbombardement wirkte für manche Tiere und Pflanzen direkt tödlich, zudem konnte es einen anhaltenden Klimawandel auslösen. Einige Forscher führen die wiederholten Massenaussterben in der Erdgeschichte auf diese Effekte von Supernovae zurück, die im Umkreis von wenigen Dutzend Lichtjahren um das Sonnensystem detoniert waren.

29.09.2018 - 15:44 [ Scott E. Forbush / National Center for Biotechnology Information / National Institutes of Health ]

SOLAR INFLUENCES ON COSMIC RAYS

(15. Januar 1957) Probably all the established variations with time of cosmic-ray intensity are directly or indirectly due to solar influences.

29.09.2018 - 15:40 [ PhysicsWorld.com ]

The riddle of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays

(31.7.2018) Far, far away, something – somewhere – is creating particles with crazy amounts of energy. Whatever they are or wherever they’re from, these particles can be anything between 1018 eV and 1020 eV. Given that the top particle energy at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is about 1013 eV, some of these particles are a million times more energetic than anything we can fashion at the most powerful particle accelerator on the planet. Quite simply, they’re the most energetic particles ever seen in nature.

Known as ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), these particles were discovered in 1962.

29.09.2018 - 15:40 [ Vice.com ]

Mysterious Cosmic Rays Shooting from the Ground in Antarctica Could Break Physics

(today) Physicists have long known that high energy particles can penetrate deep into Earth, but none of the particles predicted by the Standard Model—the most accurate model of physics that has ever existed—should be able to pass all the way through the planet.

29.09.2018 - 15:36 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Sun‘s protective ‚bubble‘ is shrinking

(18.10.2008) The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

29.09.2018 - 15:09 [ Spiegel.de ]

Heliosphäre: Sonnensystem hat länglichen Schutzschild

(3.6.2006) Die Heliosphäre ist eine Art Kokon, den die Sonne um das Planetensystem legt und es damit vor der kosmischen Strahlung abschirmt. An seinem Rand, der die treffende Bezeichnung „Termination Shock“ trägt, stoßen die von der Sonne permanent ausgestrahlten geladenen Teilchen – der Sonnenwind – auf geladene Partikel aus dem interstellaren Raum und werden abrupt abgebremst.

29.09.2018 - 15:06 [ Institut für Astrophysik an der Universität Göttingen ]

Physikalische Grundlagen des Weltraumwetters – Die Heliosphäre

(2011) Variation der kosmischen Strahlung mit dem Sonnenzyklus

29.09.2018 - 14:45 [ Frankfurter Rundschau ]

Erdmagnetfeld: Der Schutzschild schwächelt

(16.12.2010) Wie ein unsichtbares Netz umgibt das Erdmagnetfeld unseren Planeten und schützt ihn vor energiereichen Teilchen aus dem Weltraum. Doch seit langem verliert es kontinuierlich an Stärke, in manchen Regionen um bis zu vier Prozent pro Jahrzehnt. Würde der Magnetschirm durchlässig, so hätte dies negative Auswirkungen auf das Klima und die Biosphäre. Bei starken Teilchenstürmen von der Sonne könnte es zu Ausfällen in den irdischen Elektrizitätsnetzen und der Satellitenkommunikation kommen. Geophysiker kennen jedoch weder die Ursache für das Schwinden des Feldes, noch können sie die weitere Entwicklung vorhersagen.

29.09.2018 - 14:08 [ Zeit.de ]

Gewitter: Blitze erzeugen radioaktive Strahlung

(22.11.2017) Diese Vermutung hatte bereits 1925 der schottische Physiker Charles Wilson geäußert. Bisherige Versuche, diese Reaktionen zu beobachten, waren jedoch erfolglos oder erlaubten keine Unterscheidung zwischen Reaktionen durch Blitze oder durch die kosmische Höhenstrahlung.

29.09.2018 - 14:07 [ Deutschlandfunk ]

Kosmische Strahlung und Blitze

(16.05.2007) Einige Studien deuten darauf hin, dass die Wolken selbst kein ausreichend starkes elektrisches Feld aufbauen können. Vielleicht benötigen sie die Hilfe der kosmischen Strahlung, um den Blitz auszulösen.

29.09.2018 - 14:05 [ Heise.de ]

Blitz und Donner aus dem All: Energiereiche Ionen der kosmischen Strahlung tragen anscheinend zur Auslösung von Gewitterblitzen bei

(11.5.2005) „Kein Mensch hat bislang kapiert, was hier los ist“, meint Joe Dwyer, der an der Technischen Hochschule Floridas in Melbourne forscht. Er hofft, der Lösung des Problems nahe zu sein. Von Blitzen abgestrahlte hochenergetische Röntgenstrahlung (Bevor der Blitz zuschlägt) deutet auf die kosmische Strahlung als Ursache von Blitzen.

29.09.2018 - 13:39 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Fermi Talks Tech: The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) as a Solar Monitor

(21.9.2018) Some of these triggers are due to the cosmological Gamma-ray Bursts, others to sporadic bursting sources of impulsive high-energy emission within our galaxy such as Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters or accreting binary systems. (…)
This has happened nearly 1200 times during the mission, with most of the triggers arising during the most active part of the solar cycle.

29.09.2018 - 13:37 [ Cornell University Library ]

Astrophysics – High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena: First HAWC Observations of the Sun Constrain Steady TeV Gamma-Ray Emission

(16.8.2018) The likely cause is hadronic cosmic rays undergoing collisions in the Sun‘s atmosphere after being redirected from ingoing to outgoing in magnetic fields, though the exact mechanism is not understood.

29.09.2018 - 13:31 [ Physics Today ]

A puzzling gamma-ray survey of the Sun

(14.8.2018) Our star appears to unleash its most energetic photons during the quiet phase of its 11-year cycle.

(…)

The flux significantly exceeded that predicted by the one and only model that takes on cosmic-ray interactions with solar gas.

19.08.2018 - 20:57 [ Scott E. Forbush / National Center for Biotechnology Information / National Institutes of Health ]

SOLAR INFLUENCES ON COSMIC RAYS

(15. Januar 1957) Probably all the established variations with time of cosmic-ray intensity are directly or indirectly due to solar influences.

19.08.2018 - 20:50 [ National Center for Biotechnology Information / National Institutes of Health ]

Cosmic Influence on the Sun-Earth Environment

(Dezember 2008) Since the early days of human civilization we have looked at the sky and tried to understand the environment of the Earth and the Universe [1, 2, 3, 4, and 5]. We are continuously collecting data for different environmental parameters. Sudden heat or cold waves, tornados, erratic rainfall and snowfall are being observed and their forewarning has been attempted. Efforts have been made to understand the influence of stars and the Sun, which, although they are distant objects in space, can influence the environment of the Earth. Extragalactic cosmic rays measured as neutron counting rate, represent an energy spectrum, which is being received by the solar system from the distant stars; the particles of cosmic rays are atom –nuclei with almost light velocity [6, 7]. The effects of the Sun on the environment of the Earth were found to be modulated by the geomagnetic field and the ionizing potential of the cosmic rays [8]. Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and its effects on the thermosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere have been studied. During Earth directed CME a beam of electrons (plasma) is pumped towards the Earth [9]. This beam of electrons is highly conductive and generates an electric field that is transmitted to Earth‘s natural plasmosphere and ionosphere. This thin layer of changed electric field further influences the ionosphere and atmosphere of the earth [24]. Since a beam of electrons is carried by an electric current, a magnetic disturbance would be produced. Starbursts are caused by a special variety of neutron star known as a magnetar. These fast-spinning, compact stellar bodies create intense magnetic fields that trigger explosions, which are known as starbursts. Starbursts cause the Sun to develop low Planetary Indices (Kp) and low Electron flux (E-flux) conditions for the Sun-Earth Environment.
(…)
If the electron flux from the sun is low, with the subsequent rise in cosmic rays simultaneously anomalous snowfall and lowering of the atmospheric temperature has been observed. It would be possible to understand the movement of clouds and snowfall, as well as atmospheric moisture, if we could efficiently calculate the influence of space weather and cosmic influence on the thermosphere and atmosphere of the Earth [12]. Based on the same hypothesis it was found that an abnormal rise and sudden fall in E-flux, Kp index and atmospheric temperature has the possibility of triggering earthquakes in active fault areas of the Earth due to temporary changes in the magnetic field of the Earth. The whole process was expressed as a precursor of earthquakes in active fault areas.

19.08.2018 - 20:16 [ PerspectaWeather.com ]

More evidence of an increase in cosmic rays as sun approaches minimum

(26.5.2017) “Spaceweather.com” has led an effort for more than two years to monitor radiation levels in the stratosphere over California with frequent high-altitude helium balloon flights. These balloons contain sensors which detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV and are produced by the crash of primary cosmic rays into Earth‘s atmosphere. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners. The findings confirm the notion that indeed cosmic rays have been steadily increasing over California as solar cycle 24 heads towards the next solar minimum. In fact, there has been a 13% increase of stratospheric radiation over California from March 2015 to May 2017.

19.08.2018 - 20:14 [ Bartol Research Institute - University of Delaware ]

COSMIC RAYS AND THE SOLAR CYCLE

Emissions of matter and electromagnetic fields from the Sun increase during high solar activity, making it harder for Galactic cosmic rays to reach Earth. Cosmic ray intensity is lower when solar activity is high.

29.01.2015 - 05:15 [ Physics.aps.org ]

Focus: Gamma-Ray Bursts Determine Potential Locations for Life

The researchers found that there was a 60% chance we were hit in the past 1 billion years or a 90% chance if one looks back 5 billion years—consistent with previous estimates based on preliminary models of GRBs. It’s possible, then, that a nearby GRB could have caused one of the mass extinctions recorded in the fossil record. In fact, the Ordovician extinction, which occurred around 440 million years ago, had certain signatures of a GRB-induced event, such as a greater extinction rate among surface-dwelling marine life as compared with bottom-dwellers