Tea at Trianon: Starquakes

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, July 22, 2024

Starquakes

From Space:

Solar scientists have spotted indications that the next solar cycle is beginning. That is despite the fact that it isn't due for another six years, and the current solar cycle (Cycle 25) is still in progress. The current solar cycle is expected to reach its peak or "solar maximum" midway through 2025 when the magnetic field of our star will flip and its poles will switch. Leading up to this solar activity has been ramping up with an increase in sunspots, solar flares and eruptions of stellar plasma called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Despite the gearing up of Cycle 25 to its peak, it looks like Cycle 26 just can't wait to tag in. The rumblings of the onset of the next 11-year-long solar cycle came in the form of "starquakes," sound waves ricocheting through the interior of the sun detected by researchers from the University of Birmingham. (Read more.)