Scientists in China have created an 'artificial star' that is three times hotter than the sun , paving the way for the end of fossil fuels.
Physicists have engineered a way to make hydrogen gas that heats up to a whopping 50 million C.
And crucially, they've been able to maintain that temperature for a record 102 seconds.
While it might not sound hugely impressive, the only other attempt to reach this high a temperature was done by German scientists, who managed 80 million C - but only for a fraction of a second.
Physicists believe this new discovery could mean the end of relying on fossil fuels .... http://www.mirror.co.uk
China is set to build a giant solar power station in the Gobi desert, which could generate enough energy to supply one million homes.
The proposed power station will measure 10 square miles and generate 200 megawatts of solar energy.
The plans will fall in line with the Chinese government’s ambitious initiative to reduce the country’s fossil fuel energy by 20 per cent by 2030 in addition to cutting its green house gas emissions .... http://www.independent.co.uk
Earth is facing the prospect of a ‘mini ice age’ this century, with our sun’s activity projected to fall 60 percent in the 2030s, British astrophysicists say, based on the results of new research that they claim allows exact predictions of solar cycles.
Our planet is just 15 years from a new ‘mini ice age’ that could cause extremely cold winters characterized by the freezing of normally ice-free rivers as well as by year-round snow fields in areas that have never witnessed such climate conditions before, a group of astrophysicists claim.
The scientists could draw such a conclusion based on a new model of the sun’s activity that reportedly enables the researchers to make “extremely accurate predictions” of changes in solar activity .... http://rt.com
There were no fireworks on the sun to welcome in the New Year - and in fact, scientists say the end of the year was relatively quiet on the solar surface.
However, the sun has started 2015 with a mysterious event - a huge hole has appeared.
Known as a coronal hole, the phenomenon occurred near the south pole - and is seen as a dark area covered all of its base in these stunning images .... http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Britain’s most complete solar eclipse in 16 years will block out as much as 90 percent of sunlight across parts of the UK and Europe next month.
The moon will pass in front of the sun on Friday, March 20, casting a large shadow over the Earth.
The partial eclipse will last for around two hours and will be visible across Europe.
It is expected to affect energy supplies due to an increasing reliance on solar power. Energy experts warned of possible blackouts .... http://rt.com/uk
If you thought the polar vortex was bad, get a load of a new climate phenomenon that just might be coming our way.
Some scientists say we could be headed for another “Little Ice Age,” given how eerily calm the sun has been in recent years.
First, a bit of background. The sun goes through cycles that last roughly 11 years, marked by the ebb and flow of sunspots on its surface. At peak sunspot activity, the so-called solar maximum, the sun sports lots of sunspots and is steadily unleashing solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Since our current solar cycle, Number 24, kicked off in 2008, the number of sunspots observed has been half of what heliophysicists expected .... http://www.huffingtonpost.com
The number of lightning strikes across the UK has been significantly affected by solar activity, according to new research.
Scientists say the Sun's magnetic field is bending the Earth's own field, increasing our exposure to cosmic rays.
These rays are believed to increase the number of thunderclouds and trigger lightning bolts in some locations.
Over five years, the UK experienced 50% more strikes when the Earth's magnetic field was affected by the Sun .... http://www.bbc.co.uk
The Earth’s biggest sunspot in over two decades has unleashed a barrage of solar flares, including five in the strongest, X-class, over a period of eight days, a NASA video shows .... https://www.youtube.com
Scientists have identified what could be the largest sun spot for more than a quarter of a century.
If it erupts, the resulting solar storm will send particles at super speed crashing towards earth cutting off electricity supplies, telephone signals and computer systems, they said.
The Met Office said it is watching a sun spot which is currently thought to be the biggest detected in 25 years.
A spokesman said: “The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre is currently monitoring the biggest sun spot in this 11-year solar cycle, so big that it’s about the size of Jupiter or 11 times bigger than the Earth .... http://www.express.co.uk
The Abbott government’s chief business adviser, Maurice Newman, has warned that Australia is ill prepared for global cooling owing to widespread “warming propaganda” in his latest critique of mainstream climate science.
Newman, who chairs the prime minister’s Business Advisory Council, said there is evidence that the world is set for a period of cooling, rather than warming, leading to significant geopolitical problems because of a lack of preparedness.
Adam Bandt, deputy leader of the Greens, said Newman’s comments were an “embarrassment to the government” .... http://www.theguardian.com
Cameras used by scientists at NASA have captured images of “significant” solar flares emitting from the sun this week.
A satire science story from NationalReport.net (1) has gone viral after warning readers that solar panels are draining the sun’s energy. The most remarkable thing about the story is not its hilarity but rather the fact that so many readers took it seriously.
The article claimed to quote the Wyoming Institute of Technology issuing a warning: “…the solar panels capture the sun’s energy, but pull on the sun over time, forcing more energy to be released than the sun is actually producing.” .... http://www.naturalnews.com
A NASA spacecraft has made a surprising find on the surface of the sun: a square-shaped "hole" in the star's outer atmosphere.
The dark square on the sun, known as a "coronal hole," is an area where the solar wind is streaming out of the sun at superfast speeds. NASA captured avideo of the sun's square-shaped coronal hole between Monday and Wednesday (May 5-7) using the powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) .... http://www.space.com
The Sun’s activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned.
They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London’s River Thames.
Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to ‘major changes’ in temperatures.
‘Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,’ Richard Harrison of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire told the BBC.
‘I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.’
He says the phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those during the Maunder Minimum. ’There were cold winters, almost a mini ice age. ’You had a period when the River Thames froze .... http://www.dailymail.co.uk
The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city’s natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens across the city to observe virtual sunrises.
The futuristic screens installed in the Chinese capital usually advertize tourist destinations, but as the season’s first wave of extremely dangerous smog hit – residents donned air masks and left their homes to watch the only place where the sun would hail over the horizon that morning.
Commuters across Beijing found themselves cloaked in a thick, gray haze on Thursday as air pollution monitors issued a severe air warning and ordered the elderly and school children to stay indoors until the quality improved .... http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Scientists are saying that the Sun is in a phase of "solar lull" - meaning that it has fallen asleep - and it is baffling them.
History suggests that periods of unusual "solar lull" coincide with bitterly cold winters
