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31 July 2018

New Look Inside Sun's Atmosphere Yields Clues About Mysterious Solar Wind


Our sun is surrounded by a deep, million-degree atmosphere that affects everything in the solar system — but how, precisely, it does so is a mystery.

The atmosphere, called the corona, produces the solar wind — a flood of charged particles that stream out of the sun and across the solar system. As the solar wind travels to Earth, it brings threats of radiation and magnetic interference.

Now, in a new study, researchers have finally managed to watch it being born in the sun's outer corona. The images provide enough detail for researchers to be able to start piecing together why it flows in such complex ways. They have concluded that one likely explanation is that the turbulence is a legacy of where it comes from. [During Eclipses, Astronomers Try to Reveal the Secrets of the Solar Wind]

"Previous images showed the outer corona as a smooth structure, but in deep space, the solar wind is turbulent and gusty," co-author Craig DeForest, a solar physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, said in a university statement. "Using new techniques to improve image fidelity, we realized that the corona is not smooth, but structured and dynamic. Every structure that we thought we understood turns out to be made of smaller ones, and to be more dynamic than we thought."

The research relied on data from STEREO, a NASA mission that has been orbiting the sun since 2006. It carries an instrument called a coronagraph, which uses a black disk to block out the bright surface of the sun. That lets scientists see what's happening in the corona, which is much fainter than the surface and would otherwise be washed out by its light.

But that data hasn't been detailed enough to let scientists see what's really happening inside the corona, according to NASA. To tackle that problem, the researchers first asked for a specific type of data from the STEREO team: long-exposure images that would capture fainter signals. Then, they set to work laboriously cleaning up the data to remove confusing factors like the light of background stars or false signals from the instrument itself.


The cleanup involved piecing together the images in a particularly careful way that considered how quickly the solar wind was flowing out and shifting the images accordingly. To do so, they matched up images over time, according to their place in the flow of solar wind, rather than their specific location in space — like tracking individual patches of solar wind as they streamed out of the sun.

 The process is the equivalent of aligning sequential images of a log drifting in a current so that the log, rather than the trees along the riverbank, stacks up in every image — offering a more detailed image of the log.


The result is a much clearer picture of the flow of solar wind, showing the smaller structures that make up the seemingly disorganized whole. That structure, hidden below the smooth surface, helps explain why the solar wind flows so turbulently as it travels farther away from the sun.

The research is described in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 18.


The new imaging also highlighted a region where things got particularly interesting, about 4.3 million miles (7 million kilometers) above the sun's surface. Before and after this point, the solar wind was relatively easy to track, but in this region, the flow seemed to hit a bump in the road. The team isn't sure what's happening there.

Conveniently enough, NASA is due to launch a new mission that will bring scientists even more data about the sun's corona. The Parker Solar Probe, scheduled for launch in early August with data collection beginning later this year, will eventually fly directly through this region of our star, dipping below the bumpy section — and hopefully deciphering still more mysteries about the solar wind and its birthplace.


SIC ITUR AD ASTRA!

28 July 2018

Cardinal removed from public ministry after (((alter))) boy sex abuse scandal




(Here)


The Archdiocese of New York said earlier it would not release specific details about the allegation to protect the victim’s privacy. It said a review board had found the allegations to be “credible and substantiated.” The accusation was also turned over to law enforcement in New York, according to the archdiocese.


In the weeks since the allegations were made public, others have come forward to say McCarrick had sexually abused them, according to published reports.

The cardinal said in June that he was “shocked” by the initial allegation.


“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” he said in a statement in June.


McCarrick was also accused three times of sexual misconduct with adults “decades ago” while he served as a bishop in Metuchen and Newark, New Jersey, the current bishops of those cities said in June.


Two of those allegations resulted in settlements, the bishops said. McCarrick did not comment on those allegations at the time they were made public and could not be immediately contacted Saturday.

Patrick Noaker, the attorney for the former altar boy who made the accusation against McCarrick, said in June that his client was molested twice by McCarrick, once in 1971 and once the following year.



Both alleged incidents, Noaker said, occurred at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as his client was being fitted for a cassock for Christmas Mass. At the time, McCarrick was secretary to Cardinal Terence Cooke, New York’s top churchman.


"McCarrick started measuring him, then he unzipped his pants, stuck his hand in and grabbed his genitals," Noaker said. The lawyer said his client, who was about 16 at the time and a student at a Catholic high school in New York, pushed McCarrick away. “One thing he distinctly remembers is that McCarrick told him not to tell anyone about it,” Noaker said.


The second alleged incident occurred the following year, again during a fitting for cassocks before the big Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Noaker said his client was unsure about whether to go but that McCarrick was not in charge of the fittings. But the future cardinal confronted his client in the bathroom, Noaker said, again molesting his client, sticking his hands down his pants.


"He brushed him away and avoided McCarrick like the plague from then on," Noaker said.

As a cardinal, McCarrick was one of the highest-ranking American leaders in the Catholic Church to be removed from ministry because of sex abuse charges.


McCarrick, who led the Archdiocese of Washington from 2001 to 2006, was known as a friendly and effective advocate for the Catholic Church’s political priorities, particularly focusing on the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. As the leading Catholic in Washington, he worked with presidents and other powerful figures, earning a reputation as someone who could work with both parties.