Boundary Between Earth's Upper Atmosphere And Space Has Moved To Extraordinarily Low Altitudes...

Science Daily ^ | Dec. 16, 2008 | Unknown

[SunkenCiv]

These observations were made by the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite, which was launched aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite on April 16, 2008.

The more ya study, the more ya know, the more ya know, the more you forget... I'm sometimes amazed how new tools give new answers, but that some people seem to forget that the data may have been there all along, we just didn't know. :')

[6ppc]

Wing nuts on the north and south pole.

Yeah, but as it spins one of them will tighten, and the other will loosen.

[Plutarch]

Yeah, though the Earth's atmospheric boundary is low now, that is as nothing compared to the Medieval Minimum.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Does this mean that I can reach outer space in a 747? :-D

[bigheadfred]

(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. {11} There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow. {12} I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. {13} I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! {14} I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

So there! :-)

[SunkenCiv]

Solar Flare Surprise:
Stream Of Perfectly Intact Hydrogen Atoms Detected
by AUTHOR
ScienceDaily
Monday, December 15, 2008

Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Not a single atom should remain intact. At least that's how it's supposed to work... The event occurred on Dec. 5, 2006. A large sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb and with little warning it exploded. On the "Richter scale" of flares, which ranks X1 as a big event, the blast registered X9, making it one of the strongest flares of the past 30 years... NASA's twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft made the discovery: "It was a burst of hydrogen atoms," says Mewaldt. "No other elements were present, not even helium (the sun's second-most abundant atomic species). Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes." Next came 30 minutes of quiet. The burst subsided and STEREO's particle counters returned to low levels. The event seemed to be over when a second wave of particles enveloped the spacecraft. These were the "broken atoms" flares are supposed to produce--protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron. "Better late than never," he says.

[decimon]

Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes.

Sounds like a good place to go to recharge your fuel cells.

[bigheadfred]

And parking is FREE!!!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

This might interest you.

[Nuc1]

Prepare for a serious "minimum" or maybe even the return of the North American Ice Sheet.

I'm hoping for a minimum period rather than an ice age. However, graphs of global temperatures I have seen on FR indicate we are due for a real ice age.

[gleeaikin]

I know about the Deccan Trapps of 65 million years ago, but what is this about a Deccan Ice Shield? And why is it whose turn?