However miniscule the effect, could the gravity of Venus, Earth, Jupiter, or other massive planets in some way, influence sunspot activity?
Gravity's effect on space works at unlimited distances, but the issues is that the effects are diminished at a rate that is inversely squared. ie, as you double your distance, the effects of gravity are decreased by a factor of 4. What this means is if at point (a say 5 miles), you are 200lbs. At 10 miles, you would weight 50 pounds. This impacts the planets effect on the Sun. (it's actual name is Sol) Now, while the Sun is huge and massive. It's actually made up of plasma and the plasma on the surface acts more like a liquid than a solid mass. So, yes. The effects of the planets gravity can and do affect the surface plasma of the Sun. That effect is likely minute due to the Sun's gravity is far more powerful effect on the plasma. Actually, the planets circling the Sun actually make the Sun (Sol) wobble. We can actually detect planets around other stars because they also wobble! That is one way we detect Exoplanets! The issue there is the fact that Sun spots are actually created via magnetic fields being twisted, stretched, and snapping back in place on / in the Sun. The different planets gravity do not affect the magnetic fields that surround the Sun in any quanitity. Those are from the twisting volumes within the Sun as the Earth's inner core create the ones that protect the atmosphere (and us) on the Earth. Dave ~ K1SZO
Actually it's an inverse function of the cube. Twice as far away, 1/8 the gravity. https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/17807/tidal-influences-of-planets-on-the-sun The pull of gravity is based on distance from the center of the earth, so the weight difference between 5 and 10 miles above the surface is quite miniscule. On an airliner at 30,000 feet (about 6 miles), you do weigh a tiny bit less. Amazing that we have instruments sensitive enough to detect that wobble. I read somewhere that a tide can be detected in a teacup. What causes the magnetic fields to be twisted, stretched, and snap back? Could the wobble possibly have a tiny bit of influence? Thanks for the response, Dave. I really get off on scientific discussion.
Sunspots occur over regions of intense magnetic activity, and when that energy is released, solar flares and big storms called coronal mass ejections erupt from sunspots. Since much of the Sun is plasma, as while plasma is mass, I don't see how weak gravitational fields could appreciably affect it. The plasma is very hot, meaning it has high kinetic energy, so when it breaks away it streams out at very high velocities. https://www.plasmacoalition.org/plasma_writeups/solar_plasmas.pdf Pheel
WRT the OP’s question, that has been around for decades. At least since the 1970s and probably much earlier. It’s hardly “amateur radio news”.
Check out research being done in Australia, Planetary line-up excites the sun Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle? (2008) They have a theory that it does. But as the author Ian Wilson says ""It is one thing to show an association and quite another to show cause and effect. We have to be very careful, but we will know in a few years." 73, John, WØPV
It's just detecting the Doppler shift. It only works in very specific configurations (we have to be very close to edge on to the orbital plane of the particular system, because otherwise there's no detectable Doppler shift). There are however many other methods of detecting exoplanets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_exoplanets
It should be remembered that more than 99% of the mass of the Solar System is the Sun. All of the planets, their moons, the asteroids, comets, the various objects out beyond Pluto, etc., all put together don't make up even 1% of the mass of the Solar System. And, most of that non-solar mass is out beyond the orbit of Mars. The moon, OTOH, is relatively close to the Earth (about 30 earth-diameters) and its mass is more than 1% of the Earth's.
