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Alternating groups of planets could cluster on the Sun and cause an energy cycle.
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It appears that alternating groups of researchers may be doing the same about solar theories.
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When the planets align, the effects of their gravity on the Sun can combine into greater force.
In newly published research, scientists from Germany’s largest research group tried to determine something amazing: the Sun’s “heartbeat,” a tide-like cycle that ebbs and flows over an 11-year period. In the paper, they combine three known phenomena affecting the Sun and unite them under one overarching theory. The explanation, they say, could be as simple as the orbiting planets — the way the moon affects our tides on Earth. The research took place at the Helmholtz Center in Dresden-Rossendorf and now appears in Solar physics.
The sun is huge, and here on tiny Earth it can seem almighty. But internally it shares some things in common with Jupiter and even with Earth. The Sun does not have any kind of solid matter, instead it is made up of white hot gas and plasma – the vast majority of which is hydrogen. But its huge magnetic field is created by a spinning effect known as the solar dynamo, which is related to both Earth’s spinning and molten core and Jupiter’s mysterious interior.
It may also be surprising that the planets, with their pitiful little gravity, can eventually affect the Sun at all. But the planets are kept in a careful balance. The sun pulls on them and they orbit at a consistent distance without being pulled in… thankfully.
The Sun’s planetary gravity pulls back, at least a little. Jupiter is the biggest culprit, which makes sense—it is, after all, 11 times the diameter and 318 times the mass of Earth. But in this research, scientists found that Earth and Venus are also involved.
“Starting on the high-frequency side, we show that the biplanetary spring tides of Venus, Earth and Jupiter are able to excite magneto-Rossby waves,” which is one type of cyclical change the Sun experiences, the researchers explained. In other words, these planets sometimes line up with each other from the Sun’s point of view, and this combines their individual gravitational influences. This could explain the shortest of the solar cycles, which lasts 11 years.
There are similar multiplicative overlaps in the longer cycles of the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn combine forces approximately every 20 years, and the Sun’s own motion pushes them closer to or further away from the exact center of the Solar System in a less regular shape, so every 193 years there is another cycle that may be related. And the granddaddy of them all is a cycle of over 2,300 years in which Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune work together.
These arguments—while well supported—have brought some controversy to the solar science community. People have long studied how the planets affect the Sun, and have even theorized about these varying lengths of cycle. “The main problem with this problem is that even its very existence is not generally accepted,” the researchers wrote. “On the contrary, several recent works have vehemently refuted any claim of phase stability.”
Each recognized scientific article carries dozens of references and serves as a springboard from which other scientists can constantly iterate. The Sun is particularly difficult to study, and researchers must carefully build their cases based on observations from millions of miles away and through heavily filtered (but not blinding) viewers. They also use indirect observations to shadow (pun not intended) missing parts of the Sun’s mystery.
“[W]I consider the phase stability of the Schwabe cycle to be a serious working hypothesis for which it seems worthwhile to find a reasonable physical explanation,” the researchers concluded. “If new data emerges that unequivocally proves otherwise, we will be the first to declare this paper misleading and futile.”
Who knew studying the Sun was so salty?
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