Abstract
IN a recent communication1, E. J. Flamm and R. E. Lingenfelter discussed the nature of luminescence and of lunar bright spots. They found that of nineteen reported bright spots in the region of Aristarchus, most occurred during years when the sunspot numbers were low, and they stated: “Clearly the 19 events are negatively correlated with solar activity”. The Moon possesses only a negligible magnetic field and the particle flux at the Moon is, as pointed out by Flamm and Lingenfelter, too small by orders of magnitude to excite fluorescence, no matter whether flares, the solar wind, or cosmic-ray flux is invoked. A ‘negative’ correlation with sunspot number, if interpreted as a negative (or inverse) correlation with solar activity generally, implies a connexion with magnetic phenomena just as surely as a positive or direct correlation and would be just as hard to explain.
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References
Flamm, E. J., and Lingenfelter, R. E., Nature, 205, 1301 (1965).
Paper presented at U.S. National Academy of Sciences Meeting, Seattle, October 1965.
Waldmeier, M., The Sunspot-Activity in the Years 1610–1960 (Zürich, Schulthess and Co., 1961), and Intern. Astro. Union Bull. Solar Activity.
Fielder, G., Mon. Not. Roy. Astro. Soc., 129, 351 (1965).
Green, J., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 123, 408 (1965).
Middlehurst, B. M., and Burley, J. M., Proc. U.S. Nat. Acad. Sci. (in the press).
Middlehurst, B. M., and Burley, J. M., paper presented at Conf. “Extra-Terrestrial Sources”, Colorado Springs, Colorado, November 30, 1965.
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MIDDLEHURST, B. Transient Lunar Events: Possible Causes. Nature 209, 602 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/209602a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/209602a0
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