We have a new article in this sporadic series of “Where do writers get their ideas?” CNN recently published this article: Study shines new light on Sun’s role in Earth’s climate. The titular quote comes from Joanna Haigh, who led the research this article covers:
“The sun has been behaving very strangely. Its magnetic activity is lower than it has been for several hundred years, perhaps. And so the fact that it’s doing strange things in its spectrum is perhaps not that unexpected.”
The headline alone is enough to spark quite a few story ideas. Why is the sun behaving strangely? What does “strangely” mean? What are the consequences of this behavior? Is the Sun doing it on purpose? Why doesn’t the Sun want to sit with us during the lunch hour? What did we ever do to it?
Run with this idea and see where it takes you.
Interesting article. I knew the sun was behaving oddly because it just finished one of the longest, most sunspot-free minima in the 11-year sunspot cycle ever recorded.
Which I only knew about because, for several years running, it flung the proverbial monkey-wrench into me doing a summertime sunspot lab with my students.
So you're saying the sun has it out for you? Fess up. What'd you ever do to make it so finicky?