Tea at Trianon: Scientists Detect Highest-Energy Light Ever Seen From The Sun

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, August 21, 2023

Scientists Detect Highest-Energy Light Ever Seen From The Sun

From Science Alert:

The most energetic light ever seen emanating from the Sun has just been detected, creating a new puzzle for solar physicists to solve. A 6-year observing campaign by more than 30 institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia has resulted in the first ever detection of solar gamma radiation in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) range. But, contrary to what you might expect, it did not correlate to heightened solar activity; or, indeed, any solar activity. Rather, the Sun was pretty calm at the time of the detection, and our current models of the Sun can't quite account for it.
The Sun is the most intensely studied star in the cosmos. We have observations that span the entire spectrum, from low-frequency radio waves to the most energetic light in the Universe, gamma radiation. For all that, though, there's a lot we don't know about our home star. Details about its processes still elude us. We know that magnetic fields are important, playing a crucial role in pretty much all the solar activity we observe, but the mechanisms thereby are poorly understood. We study the light emitted by the Sun to try to gain a deeper understanding. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory in Mexico is one of the tools we use for studying the gamma and cosmic radiation from space that collides with Earth's atmosphere. (Read more.)