Month: September 2022

THE JOLT THAT MADE HISTORY. “Here, we report the discovery of GeV emission from a magnetar giant flare on 15 April 2020. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected GeV γ rays from 19 s until 284 s after the initial detection of a signal in the megaelectronvolt (MeV) band.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-01287-8 View in LinkedIn

SHOCK WAVES FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME. “We suggest that the GeV signal is generated by an ultra-relativistic outflow that first radiates the prompt MeV-band photons, and then deposits its energy far from the stellar magnetosphere. After a propagation delay, the outflow interacts with environmental gas and produces shock waves that accelerate electrons to very high energies; these electrons then emit GeV γ rays as optically thin synchrotron radiation.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-01287-8 View in LinkedIn

NOVEL COSMIC CHEMISTRY. “In the middle atmosphere, precipitating energetic particles can significantly affect the chemical processes that are involved in the formation of odd nitrogen compounds.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn

TIME TO HIT RESET. “A line is just a circle that passes through a point at infinity.” Grant Sanderson on the 3Blue1Brown channel. This video on quaternions should be the gold standard model for all maths teaching, a true work of visualization genius that takes a complex subject and makes it totally engaging. Throw out your children’s maths texts. This is how maths can be taught! https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg View in LinkedIn

DRIVERS OF NEW CHEMISTRY. “Recent simultaneous observations of a strong increase of solar protons and the global NOx concentration in the atmosphere have clearly established the causal relationship between the solar proton events and the enhancement of odd nitrogen compounds.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn

SOLAR PROTON PRODUCTS. “If sufficient downward transport is available, these nitrogen compounds can reach the stratospheric altitudes and through catalytic reaction chains to strong decrease of the stratospheric ozone.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn

SOLAR NITROGEN CHEMISTRY. “The effects caused by these short-lived solar proton events can last for months in the atmosphere. Similarly, relativistic electrons from the magnetosphere affect the nitrogen chemistry at somewhat higher altitudes (50–100 km).” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn

SUN EFFECT ON CLIMATE. “As the amount of energy from the Sun reaching the surface of the Earth is variable, it is only natural to expect that its long-term variations would affect the large-scale climatology of the Earth.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn

SOLAR CYCLE. “The “solar constant” that averages to about 1368 W/m2 has been shown to exhibit a distinct solar cycle variation. The total solar irradiance also varies at 27-day intervals, the variability being larger during high solar activity than during solar minimum conditions.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn