Posted on 05/23/2010 11:26:22 PM PDT by Dallas59
"Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."
The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will eventually bump into other, similar clouds in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it.
"The observed temperature and density of the local cloud do not provide enough pressure to resist the 'crushing action' of the hot gas around it," says Opher.
So how does the Fluff survive? The Voyagers have found an answer.
(Excerpt) Read more at redorbit.com ...
bflr
This could be what’s behind it all.
Well, that should melt those icecaps.
Now will we stop driving our SUV’s?
Man caused Galactic warming - oh no.
Ban all helium ballons.
Ban all hydrogen cars.
We’ve got to save the Galaxy.
Quick - make a new Cap and Trade Law to trade hydrogen and helium credits.
I’m starting a new company to manage trading for hydrogen and helium credits.
Who wants in? Only $1,000,000 per share. Hurry, hurry, get your stock now - it’s going fast.
LOL, but no.
The gas is fast moving (hence the 6000 C temperature) but it has very low density. There’s very little heat contained in this cloud, given its size.
“We should be through in less than 500,000 years.”
Yeah.
I got time to ride it out.
How can that be? We know that some scientists (especially evolutionists) are gods in their own minds.
LOL! Dont get me goin man ;)
My bet is its less than 500,00 years. But its all theoretical at this point.
Bush should have known. He should have warned us.
Could have been 450,000...but you know, Bushco, Darth Cheney and Rove made it worse...
The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."
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Tell us your secret. I didn't think anyone was gonna survive after a couple more years of the O.
"Ya can't change the laws of physics!"
My “secret” is the dripping, straight-faced sarcasm contained in that post....:)
Gee - obtuse much?
Lots, actually.
Thanks for asking.
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