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Flux Transfer Events — The Sun and Earth meeting behind our fronts

An artists concept of Earths magnetic field connecting to the suns--a.k.a. a flux transfer event--with a spacecraft on hand to measure particles and fields.I came across an interesting article the other day but didn’t have time to fully think about it. It seems that about every 8 minutes a magnetic portal opens between the Sun and the Earth and high-energy particles flow through the connection. Then the connection ends until the next time it cycles comes around.

Scientist thought this was a bunch of codswallop but now the facts are just so overwhelming it it can no longer be denied.    Now it’s time to start trying to figure out what’s happening. This is one of the things that makes science great, at least for me. Facts are facts and no matter how much you might wish to ignore, disbelieve, or refute them — if you are honest you have to accept the fact of the matter, adjust, and move on. That’s what science is all about. Having a theory, testing it, then depending on the facts that are gathered, changing the theory, or accepting it as “good enough for now, until new data comes in” and moving on, using this information as a basis for other theories.

Our world is constantly changing, if not in actuality, at least in our understanding of it. Centuries ago we believed the world was flat, then we believed it was round, and now we’ve seen it from space and know that it’s sort of a bulgy-squashed oval shape, slightly more roundish than not actually. But there! We learn, we grow, and our understanding grows also.

So, what does this mean that the Sun and Earth have been having these flux-transfer events. I don’t really know. But it’s been going on for ages so it must be something we need and have learned to adapt and live with. Why does it happen? Why every 8 minutes? Who knows, but now that scientists are aware of the phenomena, I’m confident that we’ll eventually learn a lot more about these flux transfer events. Personally, I wonder because of the magnetic aspect and because it begins over the equator and moves to the pole if it has anything to do with auroras — either helping to build up the charge or release it — but hey, what do I know. I’m just thinking again and that’s always dangerous.

You know I like these flux transfer events. They’re not related, but it makes me think of all those science fiction flux-thingys — flux capacitors, quantum fluxes, and others.

[Hyperion: Two things.  I wonder if the timing has anything to do with the fact that earth is 8 light-minutes away from the sun?  And second, it’s often joked that in science that first a theory is ridiculed, then its violently opposed, and finally its accepted as trivially obvious.]

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