JimmyH155
20-03-2008, 11:45 AM
Now I am the proud owner of a Coronado PST, there have not been any sunspots to look at for months. So I started researching about them and came across this interesting article - which also includes some fascinating history on an ancient civilisation:
"SUNSPOTS AND THE ANCIENT MAYANS
Written by Adrian Gilbert (author of “The end of time”)
In 1995 I co-authored a book called The Mayan Prophecies. It was a great success and has since been translated into more than a dozen foreign languages. At the core of the book was a theory, first proposed by my co-author, Maurice Cotterel, that the sophisticated 'Long Count' Calendar of the Mayan Indians was based on knowledge concerning sun-spot cycles. Yet how the Maya came by this knowledge was a mystery then and is still a mystery now. Seeking for an answer to this question, I went on to examine evidence for contacts between the Old and New worlds in Classical times. I also investigated the possibility that the Maya could have inherited their knowledge from the lost civilization of Atlantis. However, although the book addressed these issues, it still raised as many, if not more, questions than it answered. In this sense it was an unfinished work.
Much has happened in the ten years since it was written, not least the launching of the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite in December 1995. This satellite, which is in a fixed orbit around the sun, constantly sends back data concerning solar activity. It has confirmed that the sun is much less predictable in its behaviour than was previously thought. It has shown that the sun is prone to huge storms that have a dramatic effect on earth’s weather. Not only that, it is now clear that the cycle of sun-spot activity is not as easy to predict as was once thought, which is important as these too affect our weather.
People have, of course, been observing sun-spots for centuries: ever since the invention of the telescope by Galileo. Whilst their cause is a matter of opinion, it has long been recognised that there is an 11.4 year cycle between successive sun-spot maxima and minima. However, we now know that this cycle is at best only part of the story. While it may be true that for most of the past four hundred years the sun was following an 11.4 year cycle of activity, today this is no longer the case. SOHO revealed that in the year 2003, when the sun should have been moving into a more dormant phase , there was instead a massive increase in sun-spot activity. Not only were there many more sun-spots than expected but they were also very active in producing solar flares. This activity reached its peak in October when an unexpectedly powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) erupted from a sun-spot and some 9 hours later hit the earth's magnetosphere. This flare produced "Northern Lights" that could be seen as far south as Texas. Events like these, which seem to be becoming more common, indicate that the sun's magnetic field is going through major changes.
Any changes to the sun’s magnetic field will affect the entire solar system, not least the earth. This in itself is not too surprising. What is, though, is that the Maya, a native American people whose civilization was basically Stone-Age, seem to have known about long-period cycles of solar activity. Their calendar predicted that the present "age of the jaguar" would come to its end in 2012. We moved into the last katun of this age on 15th April 1993.[Note: a katun is a period of roughly twenty years, 20 x 360 days to be precise]. We are therefore, from the point of view of the Mayan calendar, living through the "end times"."
So come on Mr sun, lets see some activity:D
"SUNSPOTS AND THE ANCIENT MAYANS
Written by Adrian Gilbert (author of “The end of time”)
In 1995 I co-authored a book called The Mayan Prophecies. It was a great success and has since been translated into more than a dozen foreign languages. At the core of the book was a theory, first proposed by my co-author, Maurice Cotterel, that the sophisticated 'Long Count' Calendar of the Mayan Indians was based on knowledge concerning sun-spot cycles. Yet how the Maya came by this knowledge was a mystery then and is still a mystery now. Seeking for an answer to this question, I went on to examine evidence for contacts between the Old and New worlds in Classical times. I also investigated the possibility that the Maya could have inherited their knowledge from the lost civilization of Atlantis. However, although the book addressed these issues, it still raised as many, if not more, questions than it answered. In this sense it was an unfinished work.
Much has happened in the ten years since it was written, not least the launching of the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite in December 1995. This satellite, which is in a fixed orbit around the sun, constantly sends back data concerning solar activity. It has confirmed that the sun is much less predictable in its behaviour than was previously thought. It has shown that the sun is prone to huge storms that have a dramatic effect on earth’s weather. Not only that, it is now clear that the cycle of sun-spot activity is not as easy to predict as was once thought, which is important as these too affect our weather.
People have, of course, been observing sun-spots for centuries: ever since the invention of the telescope by Galileo. Whilst their cause is a matter of opinion, it has long been recognised that there is an 11.4 year cycle between successive sun-spot maxima and minima. However, we now know that this cycle is at best only part of the story. While it may be true that for most of the past four hundred years the sun was following an 11.4 year cycle of activity, today this is no longer the case. SOHO revealed that in the year 2003, when the sun should have been moving into a more dormant phase , there was instead a massive increase in sun-spot activity. Not only were there many more sun-spots than expected but they were also very active in producing solar flares. This activity reached its peak in October when an unexpectedly powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) erupted from a sun-spot and some 9 hours later hit the earth's magnetosphere. This flare produced "Northern Lights" that could be seen as far south as Texas. Events like these, which seem to be becoming more common, indicate that the sun's magnetic field is going through major changes.
Any changes to the sun’s magnetic field will affect the entire solar system, not least the earth. This in itself is not too surprising. What is, though, is that the Maya, a native American people whose civilization was basically Stone-Age, seem to have known about long-period cycles of solar activity. Their calendar predicted that the present "age of the jaguar" would come to its end in 2012. We moved into the last katun of this age on 15th April 1993.[Note: a katun is a period of roughly twenty years, 20 x 360 days to be precise]. We are therefore, from the point of view of the Mayan calendar, living through the "end times"."
So come on Mr sun, lets see some activity:D