Sun’s Activity Is Extremely Weak Compared to Similar Stars – “We Were Very Surprised

Sci-Tech Daily ^ | May 1, 2020 | Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

[BenLurkin]

The extent to which solar activity...varies can be reconstructed using various methods — at least for a certain period of time. Since 1610, for example, there have been reliable records of sunspots covering the Sun; the distribution of radioactive varieties of carbon and beryllium in tree rings and ice cores allows us to draw conclusions about the level of solar activity over the past 9000 years. For this period of time, scientists find regularly recurring fluctuations of comparable strength as during recent decades.

A comprehensive catalog containing the rotation periods of thousands of stars has been available only for the last few years. It is based on measurement data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, which recorded the brightness fluctuations of approximately 150000 main sequence stars (those that are in the middle of their lifetimes) from 2009 to 2013. The researchers scoured this huge sample and selected those stars that rotate once around their own axis within 20 to 30 days. The Sun needs about 24.5 days for this. The researchers were able to further narrow down this sample by using data from the European Gaia Space Telescope. In the end, 369 stars remained, which also resemble the Sun in other fundamental properties.

The exact analysis of the brightness variations of these stars from 2009 to 2013 reveals a clear picture. While between active and inactive phases solar irradiance fluctuated on average by just 0.07 percent, other stars showed much larger variation. Their fluctuations were typically about five times as strong.

For the foreseeable future, there is no indication of such solar “hyperactivity.” ... For the last decade, the Sun has been showing itself to be rather weakly active, even by its own low standards. Predictions of activity for the next eleven years indicate that this will not change soon

[SkyDancer]

And either a million miles closer we’d fried to a crisp or a million miles further away we’d all freeze - well I guess the climate change people would happy.

[Reily]

An excellent book!

[ssfromla]

If only they could put chemicals in the sun's atmosphere. They may be able to cool it down at their leisure.

They have the technology. They've dropped chemicals in our atmosphere for over a decade. /s

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin. Natural climate fluctuations, radiocarbon fluctuations, and archaeoastronomy (not in the usual sense, though).

Here are the other GGG topics introduced since the previous Digest ping:

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• Henry VII's [7th] hatchet men: Empson and Dudley [2020]
• The House of the Vettii in Pompeii, to Michael Levy's "Temple of Venus" composition for lyre [2020]
• Macbeth (c.1005 - 1057) [Mac Bethad mac Findlaich] [2020]
• This Man's DNA Is the Oldest in North America [2020]
• The mystery of the 'blue monkeys' in ancient Grecian frescoes, solved [2020]
• Neandertals had older mothers and younger fathers [2020]
• New DNA From A Neanderthal Bone Reveals Evidence Of A Lost Tribe Of Humans [2017]
• Polish Scientists Discover 1,000-Year-Old Church Walls in Ethiopia [2020]
• Rare Butchery Scene Found in 30,000-year-old Rock Art in India [2020]
• Roman history in Spain: The search for Hannibal's elephants on the Tagus River [2020]
• Sorry Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant Is Not Inside This Ethiopian Church [2020]
• Tracing the human genetic history: Every tooth tells a different story [2020]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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[SunkenCiv]

Karl's hit it exactly, imho, this is just another "the Sun's fluctuation doesn't cause climate change" story.

[shanover]

I just want to know what Hitler’s great granddaughter Greta thinks.

[a fool in paradise]

Maybe the sun is giving us a break as the earth is giving us an attack with a virus. Where the nature people on that?

[minnesota_bound]

I am thinking higher taxes would solve this problem.