Related papers: Le Soleil se l\`evera-t-il demain ?

We explore new opportunities for solar physics that could be realized by future missions providing sustained observations from vantage points away from the Sun-Earth line. These include observations from the far side of the Sun, at high…

Detailed models of the solar cycle require information about the starting time and rise time as well as the shape and amplitude of the cycle. However, none of these models includes a discussion of the variations in the length of the cycle,…

Jacobi said "man muss immer umkehren". And indeed it takes a genius like Michael Somos to take a specific non-linear recurrence, like a(n)=(a(n-1)a(n-3)+a(n-2)^2)/a(n-4), subject to a(1)=1, a(2)=1, a(3)=1, a(4)=1, and observe that surprise,…

This book covers the history of probability up to Kolmogorov with essential additional coverage of statistics up to Fisher. Based on my work of ca. 50 years, it is the only suchlike book. Gorrochurn (2016) is similar but his study of events…

Why does the Sun have a radius around 696000~km? We will see in this article that dimensional arguments can be used to understand the size of the Sun and of a few other things along the way. These arguments are not new and can be found…

In the previous study (Hiremath 2006a), the solar cycle is modeled as a forced and damped harmonic oscillator and from all the 22 cycles (1755-1996), long-term amplitudes, frequencies, phases and decay factor are obtained. Using these…

The high frequency of satellite launches, particularly over the last few years, has been a subject of significant concern, particularly relating to the future of observational astronomy, the stability of low Earth orbits, and environmental…

Sunspots have been observed for over four centuries and the magnetic nature of sunspot cycles has been known for about a century; however, some of its underlying physics still remain elusive. It is known that the solar magnetic cycle…

In this paper we evaluate the probability of the discrete time Parisian ruin that occurs when surplus process stays below or at zero at least for some fixed duration of time $d>0$. We identify expressions for the ruin probabilities within…

Sunspot number series are subject to various uncertainties, which are still poorly known. The need for their better understanding was recently highlighted by the major makeover of the international Sunspot Number [Clette et al., Space…

Since 1990 Jeanne Louise Calment has held the record for human longevity. She was born on 21 February 1875, became the longest-lived human on 12 May 1990 when she was 115.21 and died on 4 August 1997 at age 122.45 years. In this chapter, we…

It is sometimes assumed that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. Here we critically examine the assumptions inherent in this if-life-evolved-rapidly-life-must-be-common argument. We use the…

Solar cycle activity forecasting, mainly its magnitude and timing, is an essential issue for numerous scientific and technological applications: in fact, during an active solar period, many strong eruptions occur on the Sun with increasing…

Power index research has been a very active field in the last decades. Will this continue or are all the important questions solved? We argue that there are still many opportunities to conduct useful research with and on power indices.…

Several exoplanets have been discovered to date, and the next step is the search for extraterrestrial life. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of life-bearing exoplanets because our only template is based on life on Earth. In…

The Olbers conjecture, that under reasonable assumptions, light from the stars should sum at the Earth to make the sky bright at night, has been a subject of study since the early 19th century. It has been incorporated into some of modern…

The size of the diameter of the Sun has been debated for a very long time. First tackled by the Greek astronomers from a geometric point of view, an estimate, although incorrect, has been determined, not truly called into question for…

The observed persistence of specific periodicities detected in time series associated with solar surface magnetic activity over several solar cycles has led to numerous papers supporting the existence of preferred longitudes. Recent…

It is the purpose of the present article to collect arguments for, that there should exist in fact -- although not necessarily yet found -- some law, which imply an adjustment to special features to occur in the future. In our own "complex…

The Sun has long been considered a constant star, to the extent that its total irradiance was termed the solar constant. It required radiometers in space to detect the small variations in solar irradiance on timescales of the solar rotation…