Posted on 10/18/2008 6:05:05 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.
Data has shown that the sun's heliosphere is shrinking
New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched from an aircraft on Sunday on a Pegasus rocket into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will "listen" for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.
Dr Nathan Schwadron, co-investigator on the IBEX mission at Boston University, said: "The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.
"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment."
The heliosphere is created by the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields that emanate a more than a million miles an hour from the sun, meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.
At the boundary where they meet a shock wave is formed that deflects interstellar radiation around the solar system as it travels through the galaxy.
The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Last line of the article:
“It is likely that there are natural variations in solar wind pressure and over time it will either stabilise or start going back up.
I hate flux. The whole concept just annoys the heck out of me. Del phi del Q, bah.
I’d place money on “It’s happened before and it will happen again.”
NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet on April 4, 2007. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail. Comets are icy leftovers from the solar system's formation billions of years ago. They usually hang out in the cold, distant regions of the solar system, but occasionally a gravitational tug from a planet, another comet, or even a nearby star sends them into the inner solar system. Once there, the sun's heat and radiation vaporizes gas and dust from the comet, forming its tail. Comets typically have two tails, one made of dust and a fainter one made of electrically conducting gas, called plasma. (NASA/STEREO)
Oh wow. thanks!
thanks, bfl
GW Ping
Wow, I’d better get my carbon offset fees mailed in! It’s clear that our earth’s untamed pollution has far reaching effects, now we’ve reduced the sun’s shields! Oh, Leo and algore were right! /sarc
Isn't Pegasus the satellite killer designed for the F-14? Wow it can put a bird up 150,000 miles, that puts geostationary birds well within range. Take that Chi-Coms.
Will throwing some virgins into a volcano work?
Fascinating image!
They had to design a special booster to bring IBEX to that high orbit. Plus, IBEX is a fairly small payload, so it doesn’t take much oomph to get that high.
Also, the orbit is fairly elliptical, so for a short time it zooms in much closer than 150K miles before heading out again.
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