Posted on 05/26/2010 9:56:30 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Is the Sun going to enter a million-degree galactic cloud of interstellar gas soon?
Scientists from the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Southwest Research Institute, and Boston University suggest that the ribbon of enhanced emissions of energetic neutral atoms, discovered last year by the NASA Small Explorer satellite IBEX, could be explained by a geometric effect coming up because of the approach of the Sun to the boundary between the Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot gas called the Local Bubble. If this hypothesis is correct, IBEX is catching matter from a hot neighboring interstellar cloud, which the Sun might enter in a hundred years.
First full-sky maps of the emissions of energetic neutral atoms (ENA), obtained last year by IBEX, showed a surprising arc-like feature called the Ribbon. This astonishing discovery was later announced by NASA as one of the most important findings in space exploration made in 2009. Shortly after the discovery six hypotheses were proposed to explain the Ribbon, all of them predicting its relation to processes going on within the heliosphere or in its neighborhood. In a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a Polish-US team of scientists led by Prof. Stan Grzedzielski from the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, offers a different explanation. "We observe the Ribbon," says Grzedzielski "because the Sun is approaching a boundary between our Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot and turbulent gas."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
We got a hundred years to stock up on sunscreen.
Oh great, something ELSE to worry about.
Nah. Temperature is NOT heat. It is heat divided by mass. A very low-density cloud could be amazingly hot, yet generate very little heat.
I blame it on Global Warming.
My calculations show nothing of the sort....
Yeah, no kidding. What about that 2012 thing?
And just how will this affect radiant waves to the earth?
Where is the “You are here” arrow?
Don’t confuse temperature with heat. A million degrees describes the mean kinetic energy of the particles. But there are few particles, very far apart (with very high velocities) that can’t impart much heat to anything.
Reminds me of the fooraw when we passed through the tail of Haley’s Comet- lots of doom predicted, still a very thin gas.
Bookmark
“We’re doomed.”
Nope, we pay Giant Hot Molecular Gas Cloud credits to Algor and we’ll be safe.
This will not affect earth much. The Sun frequently travels through interstellar gas as it orbits the galaxy. There might be a slight rise in cosmic radiation.
Does this mean there are SUVs out beyond the solar system?
Well over my level of sub-ether comms here but I was just trying to understand. Thanks. :^)
Not to worry, not to worry. Except for the constant whooshing sound for the next 10,000 years, you won't notice a thing ;^)
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