This is extremely ingenious implementation to achieve a difficult objective! I am seriously impressed with the careful planning that went into Proba 3- It makes Juno look like a simple job in cramming instrument packaging into limited space (although there is much more to it than that of course). Did the alignment challenge have to take in any distortions caused by the moon's gravity?
I have heart arrhythmia and recently had an operation to correct it. In the slow sequence of solar maximum to solar minimum is there a definite constant? What would it require for our star to develop arrhythmia in its energy output? Are there any observed stars that are highly arrhythmic?
> Did the alignment challenge have to take in any distortions caused by the moon's gravity?
Yes, we did take those distortions into account. Also the distortions caused by all the planets in the solar system, including Pluto! I wanted to dispute the reasons for that last point, because I couldn't imagine Pluto would have any noticeable effect at all on our spacecraft, but they still left it in.
> In the slow sequence of solar maximum to solar minimum is there a definite constant?
For the Sun it is more or less constant. That said, the peaks and troughs vary dramatically from cycle to cycle and sometimes they seem to die away completely. We don't have long enough records to really track the stability of the Sun over more than a few centuries, so we're not really certain its as stable as it seems. I'll have a bit more on that in the weekly newsletter this week.
> Are there any observed stars that are highly arrhythmic?
Yes, a few. They are called irregular variable stars and there are various reasons why they can end up doing this. A lot of giant stars are very irregular, but that's often because they are unstable and trying not to blow themselves apart.
I hope your heart is doing well after the operation!
This is extremely ingenious implementation to achieve a difficult objective! I am seriously impressed with the careful planning that went into Proba 3- It makes Juno look like a simple job in cramming instrument packaging into limited space (although there is much more to it than that of course). Did the alignment challenge have to take in any distortions caused by the moon's gravity?
I have heart arrhythmia and recently had an operation to correct it. In the slow sequence of solar maximum to solar minimum is there a definite constant? What would it require for our star to develop arrhythmia in its energy output? Are there any observed stars that are highly arrhythmic?
> Did the alignment challenge have to take in any distortions caused by the moon's gravity?
Yes, we did take those distortions into account. Also the distortions caused by all the planets in the solar system, including Pluto! I wanted to dispute the reasons for that last point, because I couldn't imagine Pluto would have any noticeable effect at all on our spacecraft, but they still left it in.
> In the slow sequence of solar maximum to solar minimum is there a definite constant?
For the Sun it is more or less constant. That said, the peaks and troughs vary dramatically from cycle to cycle and sometimes they seem to die away completely. We don't have long enough records to really track the stability of the Sun over more than a few centuries, so we're not really certain its as stable as it seems. I'll have a bit more on that in the weekly newsletter this week.
> Are there any observed stars that are highly arrhythmic?
Yes, a few. They are called irregular variable stars and there are various reasons why they can end up doing this. A lot of giant stars are very irregular, but that's often because they are unstable and trying not to blow themselves apart.
I hope your heart is doing well after the operation!