Posted on 03/18/2012 7:54:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Earth has a magnetic field and Venus does not -- a crucial distinction when assessing the effects of the sun on each planet.
As the solar wind rushes outward from the sun at nearly a million miles per hour, it is stopped about 44,000 miles away from Earth when it collides with the giant magnetic envelope that surrounds the planet called the magnetosphere. Most of the solar wind flows around the magnetosphere, but in certain circumstances it can enter the magnetosphere to create a variety of dynamic space weather effects on Earth. Venus has no such protective shield, but it is still an immovable rock surrounded by an atmosphere that disrupts and interacts with the solar wind, causing interesting space weather effects.
A recent study, appearing online in the Journal of Geophysical Research on February 29, 2012, has found clear evidence on Venus for a type of space weather outburst quite common at Earth, called a hot flow anomaly. These anomalies, also known as HFAs, cause a temporary reversal of the solar wind that normally moves past a planet. An HFA surge causes the material to flood backward, says David Sibeck, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who studies HFAs at Earth and is a co-author on the paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at nasa.gov ...
Indeed.
"Since the HFA causes material to flow sunward, away from the planet, it may operate almost like a vacuum cleaner, pulling that bow shock further away from Venus. The size of the ionosphere would swell in concert."
"Is that an HFA in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" -- Solar Wind to Planet Venus
This just seen on the Twitter feed:
“Professor Morse of McGill University reports observing a total of three explosions on the planet Mars, between the hours of 7:45 P. M. and 9:20 P. M., eastern standard time. This confirms earlier reports received from American observatories. Now, nearer home, comes a special announcement from Trenton, New Jersey. It is reported that at 8:50 P. M. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grovers Mill, New Jersey, twenty-two miles from Trenton. “
IIRC, these are the opening lines for the famous 1938 Orson Welles radio play based on the H.G. Wells novel “War of the Worlds.”
Yes. The transit time from Mars is too short to be realistic.
I tried it with Mrs. blueunicorn6. I swooned when she hit me with a frying pan.
Apropos of nothing, I loved the frying pan scene in “Throw Momma from the Train”. ;’)
That was the problem with the broadcast. Didn’t seem to bother those who fell for it. I mean, really, I’ve got it on record (LP) around here somewhere, and there’s the “we return you to our program of dance music” breaks that last a short time, then the dead soldiers have been moved from the encounter site to a hospital and autopsied, and they’d died of burns or whatever (for example). Some of the radio stations used to rebroadcast that on Halloweens when I was a kid, and it was a curiousity item at best, but people here and there around the country continued to have that hysterical reaction every once in a while.
Here is another astronomical link with beautiful picture. SC - Perhaps worthy of its own separate post?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/neil-degrasse-tyson_n_1354898.html?ncid=webmail17
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