New Sunspot Coming Around

[vindictive666 (John)]

gday all


i noticed there is a new sunspot poking around the corner


http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/...e/mdi_igr/512/

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

It looks good on the maps, John. Can you do anything with the weather

[matt]

Excellent!!!

[vindictive666 (John)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

It looks good on the maps, John. Can you do anything with the weather

yep you can have mine not far from 40 degrees i think it was

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

As long as the skies clear John.

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Is this our old friend 923/930 (numbers may be wrong, sorry) coming around again, or is this a "new" solar manifestation?

As a side question is there any known "record" for longevity of a single sunspot: what's the longest that a single sunspot "event" has survived (even though it's physical appearance is mutating / evolving, but still maintaining it's "spottiness") in the same position?

[Blue Fire]

From: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/

Spotted regions not numbered by NOAA/SEC:
[S692] This region rotated into view at the southeast limb on January 28. Location at midnight: S12E78
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs)

January 26-28: No obvious partly or fully Earth directed CMEs were detected in LASCO imagery.

But I had thought I read somewhere that a CME was detected from this sunspot,... just that it wasn't directed our way.

[Blue Fire]

I second the question about just how long a sunspot can possibly last. But while trying to research the answer for myself, I came across this from http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf089/sf089b08.htm

Solar activity, your mother's birth year, and your longevity

"According to two scientists who stumbled on a startling statistical association -- though not necessarily a causeeffect relationship -- your life span may depend on the number of sunspots that appeared in the year your mother was born. "They found that if the sun was at a maximum in its 11-year cycle (during which the number of sunspots rises and falls), children of mothers born at that time would die an average of two to three years sooner than if their mothers had been born during the sunspot minimum."

Before dismissing this fascinating correlation as "nut science," consider that the study was conducted by two established scientists at Michigan State University, B. Rosenberg and D.A. Juckett. Their report was published in the March 1993 issue of the mainstream journal Radiation Research. Furthermore, in two English studies of longevity. the same periodicity was remarked. Although the population sample in the Michigan State work was small (7552), the phenomenon appears sufficiently robust to admit to the columns of Science Frontiers! (In truth we covet bizarreness as much as robustness!)
But what possible causal link might connect one's longevity with one's mother's date of birth? Rosenberg and Juckett point to the fact that when a woman is born all of her eggs are already formed. Later, they will mature and be released one at a time (usually). Therefore, if solar radiation levels (proportional to sunspot numbers) are high near her time of birth, her entire inventory of eggs will be bombarded by high levels of solar radiation. The ensuing damage might show up as shortened lifetimes for her children.

Isn't this still quite a stretch? Has solar radiation ever actually been shown to present such a possible danger to anything other than our skin or eyes? I wasn't aware that it could penetrate our bodies far enough to affect things like a woman's eggs.