Global Warming

 

Molecule structures from left to right - Carbon Dioxide, Sulfur Hexafluori, Diesel, and Methane.

* All art and photography provided by "Google Images" and NASA.

by Felicity Blaze Noodleman



September 16^th. Has been designated as “World Ozone Day” by the United Nations and therefore we at The Noodleman Group would like to give a shout out for the cause. September 25 The Clinton Global Initiative was held in New York City featuring the following speakers - President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, Tony Blair, Nicholas D. Kristof, Paul Farmer, and Madeleine Albright. This was a great photo op Since Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney were both on stage together!

Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney on the same stage together? 
Mitt spoke at the President Clinton sponsored "Global Initiative". - 9.25.12

  

10 Great Quotes
From Clinton Global Initiative

by former President Bill Clinton, converged in New York City over the past three days. The list of attendees was staggering and included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, The annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting of global leaders from around the world, organized President Barack Obama, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, Tony Blair, Nicholas D. Kristof, Paul Farmer, and Madeleine Albright.

The theme was Designing for Impact, or how great design in all areas, from construction to phones, serves the needs of the community it was designed for. How does this translate to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems? Queen Rania of Jordan talked about the need for harnessing technological abundance we have, to discover how it can be used to create solutions rather than serve only individual needs.

Statistics kept getting thrown out, on rising health care costs, women’s rights, education, and clean energy. But I was also inspired to keep traveling, and hear how tourism continually helps developing and struggling countries find an identity and grow their economies. To continue with President Clinton’s “Case for Optimism,” I gathered 10 of the most inspirational and interesting quotes I heard during break-out sessions, speeches and discussions from some of the world’s greatest minds in politics, business, philanthropy, and more.

1. “We live to prove that cooperation works better than conflict.” ~President Bill Clinton

2. “True transformation only comes from sustainable strategies.” ~Hillary Rodham Clinton during her Special Remarks. She goes on to say “When more women enter the workforce, it spurs innovation, increases productivity and grows economies. Families then have more money to spend, businesses can expand their consumer base and increase their profits; in short, everyone benefits.”

3. “I don’t think I’m in the basketball business, I think I’m in the business of helping families break generational cycles…as we lift, we create joy and hope.” ~John Calipari, Men’s Head Basketball Coach at the University of Kentucky

4. “I think Africa is one of the parts of the world that I’m most optimistic about. I think there is a genuine prospect of change…Today, what African countries need is partnership, they need good governance, they need quality investment, they need to move out of aid dependency. Aid has played a great part in helping those countries in many ways…[but] today, it’s about Africa doing it for itself. What they need is for us to be their partners and not their donors.” ~Tony Blair (Excerpts from Charlie Rose’s interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair)

5. “Today, we face a world with unprecedented challenges and complexities…But we come together knowing that the bitterness of hate is no match for the strength of love.” ~Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney in his Special Remarks

6. “Our message today…to the millions around the world, is we see you. We hear you. We insist on your dignity and we share your belief that if just given the chance, you will forge a life equal to your talents and worthy of your dreams. Our fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time and the United States will continue to lead it, in partnership with you.” ~President Barack Obama in his Special Remarks

7. “Optimism is a mix of pragmatism, focused on real solutions, like what we spend a lot of time here at CGI discussing, and also big dreams and radical ideas.” ~Chelsea Clinton while moderating a breakout session called “The Case for Optimism”

8. “We’re seeing a technological innovation that is only accelerating, and we’re seeing the power of the Internet to tap the vast human potential to solve these great problems. I look at platforms like Kiva, which have channeled $300 million into micro-finance. Kickstarter put more money into the arts than the National Endowment of the Arts last year.” ~Billy Parish, President of Mosaic

Andraka, 15-year-old cancer researcher known for developing new method for detecting pancreatic cancer

10. “Participants in CGI don’t accept poverty and other plagues as inevitable. We look for ways to achieve what others say can’t be done. Instead of placing our fingers in the air to determine which way the wind is blowing, we enlist the help of others to change the direction of the wind.” ~Madeleine Albright

Forbes
 

 

 



 

 

 

The first time I ever heard about global warming was in the 1980’s.  Bummer!  Big - big Bummer!  At that time the big warnings were about the Earth’s OZONE layer and a list of man made products which were to blame as the causes of the destruction of this OZONE layer in the Earth’s atmosphere.  Double big – big Bummer!  A loss of the Ozone means a hazard to human in so many ways.  It has been linked to a jump in reported cases of skin cancer and requires the use sun screen protection with greater SPF factors.  Shortly after our introduction to the OZONE problems the other shoe dropped.  Global warming and how the planet was under siege and our earth was being destroyed.  Not by some alien destroyers but by earths own inhabitants.  This was the decade we also learned about AIDS, HIV and the “Mad Cow” disease.  Talk about paranoia!

So what is attacking the Ozone layer of Earth’s atmosphere?  Two of the greenhouse gases, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and water vapor, also destroy ozone.  Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other halogenated ozone depleting substances (ODS) are mainly responsible for man-made chemical ozone depletion.  The total amount of effective halogens (chlorine and bromine) in the stratosphere can be calculated and are known as the equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine (EESC).  The following is a list of greenhouse gases:
 

• water vapor (H₂O)
• carbon dioxide (CO₂)
• methane (CH₄)
• nitrous oxide (N₂O)
• ozone(O₃)

 

 

 

Pie chart shows the origens of many greenhouse gases.

 

 

 

 

As of 2010 the top industrialized nations emission projection statistics - "Carbon Foot Print".



 

CFCs were invented by Thomas Midgley, Jr. in the 1920s.  They were used in air conditioning and cooling units, as aerosol spray propellants prior to the 1970s, and in the cleaning processes of delicate electronic equipment.  They also occur as by-products of some chemical processes.  No significant natural sources have ever been identified for these compounds — their presence in the atmosphere is due almost entirely to human manufacture.  Ultra-violet radiation in the stratosphere splits chlorine atoms from the CFCs and the chlorine destroys the ozone.  Water vapour also breaks down, releasing hydrogen oxide molecules which also destroy the ozone.  Now consider fossil fuel emissions (CO₂) generated from human activities. 

But wait the story gets even better and I think this discovery is outrageously hilarious.  Now a relatively new study suggests cows can contribute to greenhouse gases.  As it turns out dairy cows are also responsible in the destruction of the Ozone.  Agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.  A significant portion of these emissions come from methane, which, in terms of its contribution to global warming, is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.  The U.S. Food and Agriculture Organization says that agricultural methane output could increase by 60 percent by 2030 [Source: Times Online].  The world's 1.5 billion cows and billions of other grazing animals emit dozens of polluting gases, including lots of methane.  Two-thirds of all ammonia comes from cows.

 

 

 

 



Dairy cow outfitted with a backpack methane gas collector at
Harper Adams University College - Wales, UK.  I suppose

we could call it a "cow catcher"!  Dairy cows can produce up
to 500 liters of methane a day.

 

 

 

Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence. Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day (or about 26 gallons to about 53 gallons), while others say it's up to 500 liters (about 132 gallons) a day.  In any case, that's a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.  I think I’ll die from laughter before I die from Global Warming!

The EPA is the US Government's agency for legislation and enforcement of clean standards and monitors progress and statistical research in pollution control.  Their mission is as follows in this press release:

Our Mission and What We Do

Strategic Plan
EPA's Strategic Plan identifies the measurable environmental and human health outcomes the public can expect from EPA and describes how we intend to achieve those results.

Our Mission

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment.
EPA's purpose is to ensure that:

• all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work;
• national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information;
• federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced fairly and effectively;
• environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy;
• all parts of society -- communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local and tribal governments -- have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks;
• environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive; and
• the United States plays a leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment.

EPA

Just exactly what is the case for global warming?  So many naturally occurring circumstances produce the so called “green house gasses” such as the earth itself through volcanic eruptions to forest fires and even from the ocean's floor.  Evidently green house gases are compounded together from all sources.  I’ll say one thing at this point – I’m glad things are a little warmer rather than a cooling trend which could produce another ice age.  After all; North America was once covered by ice.  Was there a global warming trend which brought us out of “the deep freeze”?



The hole NASA saw from space!  Image above: View of the South Pole from NASA's TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) satellite. Blue and green indicate relatively large amounts of ozone. Red and yellow mark the "ozone hole," an area of decreased ozone. Credit: NASA

*  Images from NASA's Earth Observatory "Ozone Hole Watch"

Ozone is Earth's natural sunscreen, shielding life from excessive amounts of ultraviolet radiation. But Earth's ozone layer has been damaged by well-intentioned chemicals—chlorofluorocarbons, used for refrigerants and aerosol spray-cans—that have the unintended consequence of destroying ozone molecules. In the late 1980s, governments around the world woke up to the destruction of the ozone layer and negotiated the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. The treaty included a requirement that scientists regularly assess and report on the health of the ozone layer, particularly the annual Antarctic ozone hole. In January 2011, the Ozone Secretariat of the United Nations Environment Programme released its latest report and noted that the Protocol has “protected the stratospheric ozone layer from much higher levels of depletion...[and] provided substantial co-benefits by reducing climate change.”

NASA has collected data from space to document a case for global warming in the press releases which follow:

Arctic Sea Ice Hits Smallest Extent In Satellite Era

 

Maria-José Viñas
NASA's Earth Science News Team

09.19.12

 

 



 

Scientist are watching this ice flow above northern Canada and

tracking the rate of melting and it's shrinking size.

 

The frozen cap of the Arctic Ocean appears to have reached its annual summertime minimum extent and broken a new record low on Sept. 16, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has reported. Analysis of satellite data by NASA and the NASA-supported NSIDC at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the sea ice extent shrunk to 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers).

The new record minimum measures almost 300,000 square miles less than the previous lowest extent in the satellite record, set in mid-September 2007, of 1.61 million square miles (4.17 million square kilometers). For comparison, the state of Texas measures around 268,600 square miles.

NSIDC cautioned that, although Sept. 16 seems to be the annual minimum, there's still time for winds to change and compact the ice floes, potentially reducing the sea ice extent further. NASA and NSIDC will release a complete analysis of the 2012 melt season next month, once all data for September are available.

Arctic sea ice cover naturally grows during the dark Arctic winters and retreats when the sun re-appears in the spring. But the sea ice minimum summertime extent, which is normally reached in September, has been decreasing over the last three decades as Arctic ocean and air temperatures have increased. This year's minimum extent is approximately half the size of the average extent from 1979 to 2000. This year's minimum extent also marks the first time Arctic sea ice has dipped below 4 million square kilometers.

"Climate models have predicted a retreat of the Arctic sea ice; but the actual retreat has proven to be much more rapid than the predictions," said Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "There continues to be considerable inter-annual variability in the sea ice cover, but the long-term retreat is quite apparent."

The thickness of the ice cover is also in decline.

"The core of the ice cap is the perennial ice, which normally survived the summer because it was so thick", said Joey Comiso, senior scientist with NASA Goddard. "But because it's been thinning year after year, it has now become vulnerable to melt".

The disappearing older ice gets replaced in winter with thinner seasonal ice that usually melts completely in the summer.

This year, a powerful cyclone formed off the coast of Alaska and moved on Aug. 5 to the center of the Arctic Ocean, where it churned the weakened ice cover for several days. The storm cut off a large section of sea ice north of the Chukchi Sea and pushed it south to warmer waters that made it melt entirely. It also broke vast extensions of ice into smaller pieces more likely to melt.

"The storm definitely seems to have played a role in this year's unusually large retreat of the ice", Parkinson said. "But that exact same storm, had it occurred decades ago when the ice was thicker and more extensive, likely wouldn't have had as prominent an impact, because the ice wasn't as vulnerable then as it is now."

NASA scientists derive 2012 sea ice concentration data from microwave instruments aboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites. The wind data in the visualization is from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

 

 

 

 

Ice flows are receding all over the world from Alaska, Scandinavia, New Zealand
and as pictured here in the Canadian Rockies at the Columbia ice field.  Are we
seeing the final stages of the "Ice Age"?

 

 

 

 

NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record

 

Steve Cole
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Leslie McCarthy
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y.
01.19.12

 

The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.

"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," said GISS Director James E. Hansen. "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

The difference between 2011 and the warmest year in the GISS record (2010) is 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C). This underscores the emphasis scientists put on the long-term trend of global temperature rise. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect temperatures to rise consistently year after year. However, they do expect a continuing temperature rise over decades.

The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.

Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. These gases absorb infrared radiation emitted by Earth and release that energy into the atmosphere rather than allowing it to escape to space. As their atmospheric concentration has increased, the amount of energy "trapped" by these gases has led to higher temperatures.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.

The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements. A publicly available computer program is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis.

The resulting temperature record is very close to analyses by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie.

"It's always dangerous to make predictions about El Niño, but it's safe to say we'll see one in the next three years," Hansen said. "It won't take a very strong El Niño to push temperatures above 2010."

 NASA



While average global temperature will still fluctuate from year to year, scientists focus on the decadal trend. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since the year 2000, as the Earth has experienced sustained higher temperatures than in any decade during the 20th century. As greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, scientists expect the long-term temperature increase to continue as well. (Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory, Robert Simmon)

While this chart would suggest a case for global warming, the rate of

average temperature increase is only in tenths of a percent over the last

130 years. The total increase since 1880 in only 1.4 degrees.

Global Warming & Climate Change

New York Times
 

Updated: Sept. 20, 2012

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery. Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists. The increase solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that scientists fear will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.

However, the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

For almost two decades, the United Nations has sponsored annual global talks, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty signed by 194 countries to cooperatively discuss global climate change and its impact. The conferences operate on the principle of consensus, meaning that any of the participating nations can hold up an agreement.

The conflicts and controversies discussed are monotonously familiar: the differing obligations of industrialized and developing nations, the question of who will pay to help poor nations adapt, the urgency of protecting tropical forests and the need to rapidly develop and deploy clean energy technology.

But the meetings have often ended in disillusionment, with incremental political progress but little real impact on the climate. The negotiating process itself has come under fire from some quarters, including the poorest nations who believe their needs are being neglected in the fight among the major economic powers. Criticism has also come from a small but vocal band of climate-change skeptics, many of them members of the United States Congress, who doubt the existence of human influence on the climate and ridicule international efforts to deal with it.

Arctic Sea Ice Sets a New Low

The drastic melting of Arctic sea ice has finally ended for 2012, scientists announced on Sept. 19, but not before demolishing the previous record — and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region.

The apparent low point for the year was reached on Sept. 16, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which said that sea ice that day covered about 1.32 million square miles, or 24 percent, of the surface of the Arctic Ocean. The previous low, set in 2007, was 29 percent.

The New York Times

 

Industry and Government have worked together to reduce the compounds emitted into the atmosphere and protect the Ozone.  We have mover farther and farther away from fossil fuels with automobiles which get better fuel economy with gasoline mixed with ethanol that burn much cleaner.  Many large vehicles such as Buses, ect. have switched to Clean Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).  We are now moving towards the "hybrid" vehicle age and soon, maybe within the next decade, eliminate the high demand for oil products.  This would discard tons of pollution into the atmosphere and reduce the greenhouse effect greatly.

There are arguments both pro and con, both equally credible concerning global warming.  For all of the scientific data accumulated towards making a case for global warming scientist can only state that the average temperature of the earth has increased by 1.4 F degrees since the 1880’s.  The good news is that we have taken very large steps to address the issue and reduce emissions of CFC’s, fuel emissions (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases while conserving resources.  This is the real area of interest for me, cleaner standards, less wast and better air quality. 

We would like to than the following for their contributions for the information contained in this article:  Wikipedia, NASA, EPA, The New York Times, Google Images, and Forbes.  I'm Felicity and we're keeping an eye on the Ozone! 



 

Questionable science is always exposed for the fraud

that it is as time and science move forward!

 

 

 

 

* “The Noodleman Group” is pleased to announce that we are now carrying a link to the “USA Today” news site.We installed the “widget/gadget” August 20, and it will be carried as a regular feature on our site.Now you can read“Noodleman” and then check in to “USA Today” for all the up to date News, Weather, Sports and more!Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of our site and hit the “USA Today” hyperlinks.Enjoy!

 



 

 

 



 

I Hope it's not too hot, but The Noodleman Group is on "Google Blogger"!

 

The Sun

 

  

 *  All art courtesy of "Google Images" and NASA.

 

 

by Felicity Blaze Noodleman

 

 

Some weeks ago, Aug 17, 2012 we did an article about the “Weather” in which we briefly mentioned the Sun and how it could affect our weather.  The specific question raised was -  would we be able to use solar data to assist in the prediction of our weather here on earth.  The information uncovered was a little more scientific than anticipated but has been translated into relatively simple and understandable terms.  As it turns out, the Suns “dark spots or sun spots” do affect earth weather and the Suns solar cycles occur every eleven earth years.  The Sun affects the conditions throughout our solar system with what has been termed as a “solar wind” which emanates from the corona of the Sun and Earth is also affected.

 

Since the study of the Sun is a whole field of science in itself as it pertains to our solar system and to the overall study of space in general, I thought it would be interesting if we knew a little more about our Sun.  Helioseismology is the area of science dedicated to the study of the Sun and is studied by Solar or Helio Astronomers.  NASA has used satellites for this purpose since the early 1960's in the "Pioneer" program.

 

Our solar system - relative size comparison to the sun

 

NASA has several satellites is place to assist astronomers with their work.  One of the latest generation solar satellites is known as “SOHO” (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory).  Launched in 1995 it is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from earth (about four times the distance to the moon).  This satellite is the joint venture of many different countries.  From its construction and including the instrumentation on board to the shared use of the data which SOHO collects and returns to Earth.  Originally designed for a two year mission, SOHO’s mission has been extended up through 2012 and may continue as long as the satellite is operational.  An interesting unexpected side benefit of the satellite has been the discovery of about 2,000 comets which has aided astronomers in this area of space study. The other NASA Satellite is called the “Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (Stereo)” and is capable of transmitting 3D images from space.  There are also other nations studying the sun from their own satellites.

 

(Left) "SOHO" - Solar and Heliospheric Observatory  

(Right) Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory "Stereo"

This illustration shows how the "STEREO" spacecraft work together. On February 6,

the two STEREO spacecrafts will be 180 degrees apart and for the next 8 years the

STEREO spacecrafts and SDO will be able toobserve the entire 360 degrees of the Sun.

Credit: NASA.

STEREO Beauty Pass

An artist's conception of one of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft. The two observatories currently lie on either side of the sun, providing views of the entire sun simultaneously. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Staring Into the Sun
Launched on Dec. 2, 2005, SOHO observes the sun's deep interior and also its interactions all the way out to Earth's orbit and beyond, where the magnetized solar wind of atomic particles sweeps through interplanetary space.  Image credit: NASA/ESA

One of the biggest questions I have about space and in this case the Sun is how do scientist know what they are talking about?  For example the age of our solar system and the Sun.  Is it a guess or do they have evidence to support their statements.  I mean we are talking about billions of years after all.  Are the numbers they are stating as fact real or are they just working numbers?  Clearly they could be millions of years off of their guess and still be in the ball park!  We hear about adjustments astronomers and scientist have made in their respective areas of study occasionally from time to time in the news so they are still clearly discovering and learning.

 

 

Two charts display cut away

of the suns construction into six layers and the life cycle of the sun .

 

 

 

 

 

The remainder of this article will be devoted to answering specific questions about the Sun and will help us grasp the information rather than just trying to digest all the raw data.
 

 

HOW  OLD  IS THE SUN?  4.57 billion years old.  Scientists have arrived at this number using computer models of stellar evolution through the nucleocosmochronology (a relatively new technique for dating astrological objects).   

 

WHAT  KIND  OF  ORBIT  IS  OUR  SUN  IN?  The Sun is in an orbit around the center of our galaxy, “The Milky Way”.  One rotation in known as a solar cycle and is approximately 11 years in duration.  The Sun also rotates on its own axis. Because the Sun is comprised of  gases it has different rotational speeds and therefore a variance of rotational times.  At the equator the Sun is rotating at about 7,189 kph or 4,467 mph.  Being made of gas different parts of the sun (north to south) rotate at different speeds but the equatorial regions rotate once every 25.05 days.  The Sun is currently traveling through the Local Interstellar Cloud in the Local Bubble zone, within the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

 

 

 

The Suns rotation around the center of the "Milky Way".  In physics,
the center of mass or barycenter is the weighted average location of all the
mass in a body or group of bodies.

 

 

WHAT  IS THE  SUNS  DISTANCE  FROM  EARTH?  93 million miles.  There are two other planets between the Earth and the Sun - the planets Venus and Mercury.

 

WHAT IS THE  SIZE AND COMPOSITION OF THE  SUN?  Scientist have informally designated it as a G2V dwarf star but its total mass in more than everything in our solar system (99.86%).  Its radius is approximately 1,392,684 km or 864,938 miles and is 330,000 times that of earth.  The Sun is made up of hydrogen and helium with less than 1 % of other trace elements.   

 

 

 

Artists conception of the Suns core. 

 

 

WHAT  IGNITED  THE  SUN?  I think this is where the “Big Bang” theory originated and comes into our discussion.  A colossal explosion which created everything in the universe.  The mater created in this explosion is still growing, traveling and moving outward.

 

 

 

 

Artist conception of "The Big Bang" and expansion of the universe.
The universe is still expanding and growing.

 

HOW  HOT  IS  THE  SUN?  At the photosphere the temperature is 6,000 degrees Celsius - 5,778 k (58,000K for the sake or round numbers) and the corona is measured at 5x10 to the sixth power.  The sun generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium.  In its core, the Sun fuses 620 million metric tons of hydrogen each second.  This generates the Suns energy and is referred to as “plasma”.

 

WHAT  ARE  SUN  SPOTS?  These dark spots on the suns surface are cooler than average areas of the photosphere and usually last about two weeks.  Visible to Earth, these dark spots have been studies by astronomers for century's and were the first clues to the rotation of the Sun.

 

WHAT  ARE  SOLAR  FLARES?  A sudden eruption of magnetic energy released on or near the surface of the sun, usually associated with sunspots and accompanied by bursts of electromagnetic radiation and particles. Ultraviolet and x-ray radiation from solar flares often induce electromagnetic disturbances in the earth's atmosphere.

 

 

 

Views of the suns corona from the surface showing solar flares

 

 

 

 

Two views of the Sun
(Left) This composite image combines EIT images from three wavelengths (171Å, 195Å and 284Å) into one that reveals solar features unique to each wavelength. Since the EIT images come to us from the spacecraft in black and white, they are color coded for easy identification. For this image, the nearly simultaneous images from May 1998 were each given a color code (red, yellow and blue) and merged into one (NASA). 
(Right) Solar eclipse reveals the suns corona.





It is a theory about the origin of our universe. According to the big bang theory, the universe began as the result of an explosion that occurred between 15 and 20 billion years ago. Over time, the matter created in the big bang broke apart, forming galaxies, stars, and a group of planets we know as solar systems. The theory was first put forth by Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), who observed that the universe is expanding uniformly and objects that are greater distances are receding at greater velocities. In the 1960s Bell Telephone Laboratories scientists discovered weak radio waves that are believed to be all that remains of the radiation from the original fireball. The discovery further supported Hubble's theory, which puts the age of the universe between 15 and 20 billion years.

 

The Sun is a magnetically active star. It supports a strong, changing magnetic field

Magnetic field.  A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;..  that varies year-to-year and reverses direction about every eleven years around solar maximum. The Sun's magnetic field leads to many effects that are collectively called solar activity

 



As there are three distinct periods which we know about in the earth’s history; the prehistoric age, the ice age and the period which we are now living in or the modern age, we can see how the Sun has a great affect on life in our world.  Life on earth is also determined by how the earth is rotating on its axis.  It is all determined by the power of our Sun.

 

 

 

 

Four images of a filament on the sun from August 31, 2012 are shown here in various wavelengths of light as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Starting from the upper left and going clockwise they represent light in the: 335, 171, 304 and 131 Angstrom wavelengths. Since each wavelength of light generally corresponds to solar material at a particular temperature, scientists can compare images like this to observe how the material moves during an eruption. Credit:
NASA/SDO/AIA/GSFC

 



Swirls of green and red appear in an aurora over Whitehorse, Yukon on the night of September 3, 2012. The aurora was due to the interaction of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun with Earth's magnetosphere. The CME left the sun on August 31 and arrived on September 3. Image Courtesy of David Cartier, Sr.

 

 

I would like to thank wikipedia, answers.com and NASA for their assistance in producing the information contained in this article.  The study of the Sun is in so many ways foreign to physics and concepts in our world and is mind boggling with respects to the numerical statistics and terminology involved in the Suns description and how it works.  Scientist and solar astronomers are working and thinking on a completely different level of thinking  in their approach to analyzing the sun.  With continued study the Sun may unlock many of the secrets of our world and universe.  It could eventually take us beyond our temporal universe.

Now as we set a course to return to the planet earth we can feel a sense of accomplishment for the information we have gleaned from our voyage and study of the Sun and our solar system.  We now have a better understanding of how our solar satellites are working and sending their data to Earth.  Our satellites are in place and functioning properly as we leave.  I'm Felicity Blaze Noodleman and you've been our guest aboard the USS Noodleman for this voyage to the Sun as we engage for Earth.  See you next week!

 

 

 

 



 

I wanted to post this "Epilogue" to our NASA shuttle program since this weeks article is about space.  I photographed the shuttle in the early 1980's when the program was new.  Now the shuttle program is retired, space exploration is still continuing via satellites and orbiters with mission data being sent to earth at their respective mission control centers.  NASA has quite a few programs which are active at this time.  If you are interested and want to know more go to NASA's home page at http://www.nasa.gov/ and discover a wealth of information, photos and video.

Felicity

 

 

 

 

Image above: NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft carrying space shuttle Endeavour soars over the high desert of Southern California following takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base Friday morning on the last "California Tour" leg of its ferry flight into history.

Photo credit: NASA Dryden pilot Bill Brockett

 

 

 

 

Endeavour Ferry Flight Under Way

at 8:17 a.m. PDT

NASA  Fri, 21 Sep 2012 08:41:30 AM PDT

NASA's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, carrying space shuttle Endeavour, departed Edwards Air Force Base at 8:17 a.m. PDT to begin a four-and-a-half hour flyover of northern California and the Los Angeles basin.

The SCA and Endeavour will salute NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and the Edwards Air Force Base area after takeoff with a low flyby northbound to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Any time after 9:30 a.m. PDT, watch for Endeavour from viewing locations that include the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, the California State Capitol, Exploratorium, Lawrence Hall of Science and Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Next the aircraft will travel south, making a pass over NASA's Ames Research Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base before heading into the Los Angeles area. Any time after 11:30 a.m., watch for flyovers of Endeavour passing regional landmarks such as its future home at the California Science Center, Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, Disneyland, The Getty Center, Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles City Hall, the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, Malibu Beach, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the Queen Mary, Universal Studios and Venice Beach, among others.

Finally, the SCA and Endeavour will land about 12:45 p.m., at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for an arrival ceremony before Endeavour is taken off the 747. The orbiter will be transported to the California Science Center next month.

The exact timing and path of the ferry flight will depend on weather conditions and operational constraints. Some planned flyovers or stopovers could be delayed or canceled.

Social media users are encouraged to share their Endeavour sightings using the hashtags #spottheshuttle and #OV105, Endeavour's vehicle designation.

NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continued to set high marks of achievement and endurance through 30 years of missions. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended July 21, 2011 when Atlantis rolled to a stop at its home port, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As humanity's first reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle pushed the bounds of discovery ever farther, requiring not only advanced technologies but the tremendous effort of a vast workforce. Thousands of civil servants and contractors throughout NASA's field centers and across the nation have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to mission success and the greater goal of space exploration.

NASA





 

* “The Noodleman Group” is pleased to announce that we are now carrying a link to the “USA Today” news site.We installed the “widget/gadget” August 20, and it will be carried as a regular feature on our site.Now you can read“Noodleman” and then check in to “USA Today” for all the up to date News, Weather, Sports and more!Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of our site and hit the “USA Today” hyperlinks.Enjoy!

 

 

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