Abstract
SOLAR PHENOMENA AND MAGNETIC STORMS.—In a communication presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Quenisset directs attention to the fact that, whilst the passage of a large group of sun-spots across the sun's central meridian on October 31 coincided with a terrestrial magnetic storm of exceptional activity, the passage of a much larger group on October 11 was marked by a very faint perturbation of the magnets. In explanation of this apparent anomaly he points out that the smaller group of spots was surrounded by an immense tract of faculas, so bright that it was found possible to photograph them by the ordinary method, even when they were on the sun's central meridian, whilst scarcely any faculæ attended the larger and earlier group. From this fact M. Quenisset arrives at the conclusion, which is now becoming generally accepted, that it is the prominences and faculæ on the solar surface rather than the spots which are so closely related to terrestrial phenomena, and suggests that the monochromatic photographs of the solar surface obtained by the Hale-Deslandres method, such as are now being taken at Yerkes, South Kensington, and Meudon, will provide valuable data for the discussion of the inter-relation of solar and terrestrial phenomena (Comptes rendus, November 9).
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 69, 90–91 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/069090a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069090a0