News

**SickScent** · (This post was last modified: 06-18-2012 10:02 PM by SickScent.)

UPDATE

Jun 15, 2012
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.

"The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Data...e_999.html

__________________________________________

IBEX’s novel imaging technique has unleashed one surprise after another. Now principal investigator David McComas (Southwest Research Institute) and 10 colleagues have turned IBEX's attention to the Sun's motion through space. It turns out that the Sun is moving through interstellar gas at 52,000 miles (84,000 km) per hour, about 12% slower than previously measured by the Ulysses spacecraft.

So what does the new model look like? IBEX's observations confirm that the Sun is still moving (albeit slowly) through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a fluff of higher density gas roughly 30 light-years across. Combined with a relatively strong interstellar magnetic field, the Sun's slower advance is no longer enough to push interstellar gas into a bow shock. At best, it makes a "bow wave," a region of slightly increased density — more like a fast-moving boat than a fighter jet. This means a significant change in how scientists think about the Sun and its interaction with the stuff beyond its influence.

"It's too early to say exactly what this new data means for our heliosphere. Decades of research have explored scenarios that included a bow shock. That research now has to be redone using the latest data," says McComas.

"Observations of a few astrospheres have shown bow shocks around those stars, but IBEX has shown that our star has a fundamentally different environment surrounding it," says Christina Prested (Boston University), an IBEX scientist not involved in the published study. "These results are very exciting as we can now definitively say what it's like in the neighborhood of our solar system."

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community...55205.html

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 95681 05-13-2012 03:05 AM

Im kinda dumb, what does this mean? tell me like i am two years old.

**flintstone** lop guest User ID: 95037 05-13-2012 03:06 AM

LoP Guest Wrote:

Im kinda dumb, what does this mean? tell me like i am two years old.

^^what he said

**SickScent** · (This post was last modified: 05-13-2012 03:13 AM by SickScent.)

This is going to take a while then to explain, and I don't have time tonight.

There are a LOT of dynamics that are involved in this, and it is relatively new science.

But, for a quick tease, a scientist made a connection between these interstellar clouds, and evolution.

Boil it down and it looks like this: energy = information

denser energy (more energy) = more incoming information

These clouds may be related to eras of extinction and afterwards a massive increase in 'evolution', in new species and changed species, etc.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 95795 05-13-2012 03:15 AM

I'll have to disagree. We should be moving into an area where space is less dense. If there's no bow shock, there's probably nothing to push against.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1qPuCdS9I

This solar wind reversal came from the direction our solar system is heading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wn7vINh80g

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-earth-mov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_Leonis

**SickScent**

LoP Guest Wrote:

I'll have to disagree. We should be moving into an area where space is less dense. If there's no bow shock, there's probably nothing to push against.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1qPuCdS9I

This solar wind reversal came from the direction our solar system is heading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wn7vINh80g

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-earth-mov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_Leonis

You need to write the scientists at NASA and the IBEX Mission then!

This is awesome news!

**Ray-Ray Debarge** lop guest User ID: 92901 05-13-2012 03:21 AM

So will I be able to fly?

**Full Circle**

**DanfromtheHills**

**SickScent**

Ozymandias Wrote:

So will I be able to fly?

When the time comes, you won't have to.

chuckle

j/k

**ZeroToad**

SickScent Wrote:

LoP Guest Wrote:
I'll have to disagree. We should be moving into an area where space is less dense. If there's no bow shock, there's probably nothing to push against.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1qPuCdS9I

This solar wind reversal came from the direction our solar system is heading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wn7vINh80g

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-earth-mov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_Leonis

You need to write the scientists at NASA and the IBEX Mission then!

This is awesome news!

They won't listen, says Marvin the Robot Toad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJNRxetY6DY

Ribbit chuckle

**SickScent**

CONSEQUENCES OF A CHANGE IN THE GALACTIC ENVIRONMENT OF THE SUN
G. P. ZANK
Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716
AND
P. C. FRISCH1
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, IL 60637
Received 1998 November 12; accepted 1999 January 27

ABSTRACT

The interaction of the heliosphere with interstellar clouds has attracted interest since the late 1920s, with a view to explaining apparent both quasi-periodic climate "catastrophes" as well as periodic mass extinctions. Until recently, however, models describing the solar windÈlocal interstellar medium (LISM)interaction self-consistently had not been developed. Here we describe the results of a two-dimensional simulation of the interaction between the heliosphere and an interstellar cloud with the same properties as currently, except that the H0 density is increased from the present value of n(H0)D0.2 cm~3 to 10 cm~3. The mutual interaction of interstellar neutral hydrogen and plasma is included. The heliospheric cavity is reduced considerably in size (approximately 10È14 AU to the termination shock in the
upstream direction) and is highly dynamical. The interplanetary environment at the orbit of the Earth changes markedly, with the density of interstellar H0 increasing to D2 cm~3. The termination shock itself experiences periods where it disappears, reforms, and disappears again. Considerable mixing of the shocked solar wind and LISM occurs because of Rayleigh-TaylorÈlike instabilities at the nose, driven by ion-neutral friction. Implications of two anomalously high concentrations of 10Be found in Antarctic ice cores, corresponding to 33,000 and 60,000 yr ago, and the absence of prior similar events are discussed in terms of density enhancements in the surrounding interstellar cloud. The calculation presented here supports past speculation that the Galactic environment of the Sun moderates the interplanetary
environment at the orbit of the Earth and possibly also the terrestrial climate.

**MrRash**

SickScent Wrote:

This is going to take a while then to explain, and I don't have time tonight.

There are a LOT of dynamics that are involved in this, and it is relatively new science.

But, for a quick tease, a scientist made a connection between these interstellar clouds, and evolution.

Boil it down and it looks like this: energy = information

denser energy (more energy) = more incoming information

These clouds may be related to eras of extinction and afterwards a massive increase in 'evolution', in new species and changed species, etc.

Ah, man...bad news for us. Good news for the up-and-coming species, Cephalopod Sapien. [Image: 2qicia9.jpg]

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 93821 05-13-2012 04:58 AM

Did the Sun slow down when it hit the cloud?

**Baldrick**

INCOMING!!!!!!

Perhaps it is not the solarsystem and therfore the sun slowing down...

Maybe it is the heliosphere appearing to slow down as it compresses.

Maybe even right down to within the orbit of Mars...?

Increasing volume of interstallar particles entering within the heliosphere, and of course interacting with earths own magnetic field.... Hiding3