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Solar cycles are periodic 11-year changes in the Sun’s activity. Presumably we've only been observing the sun for a few hundred years at most, and maybe less t

Solar cycles are periodic 11-year changes in the Sun’s activity. Presumably we've only been observing the sun for a few hundred years at most, and maybe less than a hundred and fifty with any level of precise accuracy and scientific rigour. That's maybe 30 cycles in total, and 12 or 13 where we'd really be able to tell what's happening. If you bring probes or telescopes that can look at the sun into the mix we've observed maybe 4 or 5 cycles. The notion that something is extraordinary because we haven't seen it before is ridiculous. The sun probably does thousands of things we haven't observed yet. That doesn't make it weird or strange. That just means we've only been a scientifically literate species for an incredibly short time.

sp332 4y ago
It doesn't say it's never happened before. It clearly says "we've never seen it before."
- onion2k 4y ago
  It was the "This is STRANGE!" bit that I was talking about. It (probably) isn't strange. It's probably happened a lot over the past 4.6bn years that the sun has been doing its thing. It's new to us because we've only been observing it for a tiny length of time. That's not the same as it being strange.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    One definition of strange is: "not previously visited, seen, or encountered; unfamiliar or alien" It's not necessarily strange in the scope of the sun's entire existence, but it's definitely strange to us.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    By that yardstick nothing is strange; there are so many trillions of cosmic bodies distributed across so many billions of years that any imaginable phenomenon has probably occurred zillions of times. Strangeness in science is synonymous with not being readily explicable by existing theory.
h2odragon 4y ago
People hyping up their interpretations, asserting authority in explaining the things we've never seen before, are ridiculous and worthy of mockery: they speak from the wrong orifice. However, sharing the joy of "we haven't seen this before, we don't know what it means," and speaking of incorrect and frankly even silly possible interpretations is how we collectively, eventually, understand these things. The process is chaotic and often ugly but works well enough that humans think they're more in control of this planet than the ants are. Be careful that the justified ire against the authoritative tone of some dipshit reporter doesn't blind you to the wonder of new discovery. I'm anticipating the "aliens are drinking the sun like a milkshake," theorists to have a field day with this one. I'll read their discussions for amusement and the possibility they might turn up details or implications no one else does, cuz no one else looks at the data the way they do.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >I'm anticipating the "aliens are drinking the sun like a milkshake," If that's the case, we should be studying the straw. If they have a straw that reaches all the way to our star, then they have all the star. So just think about the tech we could learn by just studying that straw
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
It is VICE. They are just terrible.

sp332 4y ago

It doesn't say it's never happened before. It clearly says "we've never seen it before."

onion2k 4y ago
It was the "This is STRANGE!" bit that I was talking about. It (probably) isn't strange. It's probably happened a lot over the past 4.6bn years that the sun has been doing its thing. It's new to us because we've only been observing it for a tiny length of time. That's not the same as it being strange.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  One definition of strange is: "not previously visited, seen, or encountered; unfamiliar or alien" It's not necessarily strange in the scope of the sun's entire existence, but it's definitely strange to us.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  By that yardstick nothing is strange; there are so many trillions of cosmic bodies distributed across so many billions of years that any imaginable phenomenon has probably occurred zillions of times. Strangeness in science is synonymous with not being readily explicable by existing theory.

h2odragon 4y ago

People hyping up their interpretations, asserting authority in explaining the things we've never seen before, are ridiculous and worthy of mockery: they speak from the wrong orifice. However, sharing the joy of "we haven't seen this before, we don't know what it means," and speaking of incorrect and frankly even silly possible interpretations is how we collectively, eventually, understand these things. The process is chaotic and often ugly but works well enough that humans think they're more in control of this planet than the ants are. Be careful that the justified ire against the authoritative tone of some dipshit reporter doesn't blind you to the wonder of new discovery. I'm anticipating the "aliens are drinking the sun like a milkshake," theorists to have a field day with this one. I'll read their discussions for amusement and the possibility they might turn up details or implications no one else does, cuz no one else looks at the data the way they do.

dylan604 4y ago
>I'm anticipating the "aliens are drinking the sun like a milkshake," If that's the case, we should be studying the straw. If they have a straw that reaches all the way to our star, then they have all the star. So just think about the tech we could learn by just studying that straw

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

It is VICE. They are just terrible.