The entropy of systems

Jim,

I went back to my National Geogrophic article. As mentioned earlier on this thread, the N.G. article mentions that the uneven rotation of the sun's upper layers which culminates in the distortion of the magnetic field lines causes the sun spots.

But I wonder if Jupiter's mass has any influence on this mechanism.

Maybe the sun's radiation zone (200 000 km below the surface)is more active every 11 years. Does the speed of the solar system, or the distribution of mass affect the dynamics therefore also this radiation zone ?

GD, You said that Jupiter caused the sunspots in a post above your last two posts. Now you say you wonder if Jupiter has an effect-I'm confused, which is it? Never mind about what National Geographic says they only repeat what someone told them.

Variations in the sun (and Jupiter) atmospheres have been explained do to "pocket" nuclear reactions. In other words, there may be an hetergeneous collection of nuclear events separate but due to the main core reactions. Do any of you agree with these phenomena contributing to the temp and radiation differences observed? MV

Mark Vitrone

As John mentioned earlier, all the planets and the sun seem to be affected at the same time.
The sun's activity reflects the changing potential of the whole solar system.

The way I see it, the solar sytem's trajectory follows a "cork screw"
type of path through the galaxy accelerating to a max. when the elliptical orbit of jupiter brings it closest to the sun. Therefore there is a wobbling effect which is amplified by variations of speed of the solar system.

I think this motion has some influence on the speed of rotation of the upper layers of the sun, going faster while jupiter is closest and the solar system's acceleration is at a max.

Maybe this is where the entropy of a system comes into play: acceleration of matter is compensated by less potential (free) energy for matter.

Although the sun represents 99.8 percent of the total mass of the solar system, jupiter alone takes half of the rest with 0.1 percent.

I still think this is enough to induce the speed variations described above.

The following link shows size comparisons, distances etc. which I found interesting:

www.cs.indiana.edu/~hfoundal/astron.htm

Jim,

Here is an article that could disprove the idea that jupiter is the cause for the sunspots:

www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-06/uoc--1cs060104.php

According to me, this period of solar minimum could have been caused by a solar system being in a high potential, energy conservation mode (it was only for some time).
In this case, the planets' orbits would be more circular, the path of the solar system would be more linear instead of helical.

but this is just my guess.