Protective Shield around Solar System Weakening
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: October 21, 2008 09:02AM Someone posted this on another forum & I thought it was interesting. Five minutes ago I didn't even know our solar system has a "protective shield". I hope this problem irons itself out, it'd be a shame for humanity to beat the odds & gets it's all it's schnit together here on mother Earth just to get annihilated by some intergalactic cosmic radiation.
[www.telegraph.co.uk] Re: Protective Shield around Solar System Weakening
Posted by:
loeve
()
Date: October 22, 2008 01:21AM I got into the heliosphere recently when learning about the local interstellar medium [www.bbc.co.uk] .. suitably called the "local fluff".. it has low density compared to your average interstellar gas. And it's only expected to get better as we emerge from this medium in 10 to 20,000 years.. then the stars will be even brighter.
The sun is expected to burn steady for another 5 billion years.... I don't think NASA is too concerned about these latest reports based on an 18 year old spacecraft in an odd orbit about the sun, where the measurements cannot be verified but it sure makes a good story. This new IBEX mission sounds like it's going to answer a lot of questions. -- thanks Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2008 01:30AM by loeve. Re: Protective Shield around Solar System Weakening
Posted by:
loeve
()
Date: October 27, 2008 02:25AM BBC coverage: "Solar wind blows at 50-year low" September 24, 2008
"The solar wind, which originates in the Sun's hot outer atmosphere known as the corona, gusts and calms with the star's familiar 11-year cycle of activity (but also over its less well known longer cycles, too). "However, judging from Sun activity data collected by non-satellite methods over the past 200 years, the current behaviour is thought to be well within the long-term norm." [news.bbc.co.uk] "We have shown that it is possible with fair accuracy to extract the solar wind speed and the interplanetary magnetic field strength near the earth from hourly means of the geomagnetic elements at midlatitude stations. Such records go back more than two hundred years." [www.leif.org] The aging and "venerable" Ulysses satelite will be missed. Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.
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