From the Southwest Research Institute:
For immediate release
San Antonio — Sept. 29, 2010 — The unusual “knot” in the bright, narrow ribbon of neutral atoms emanating in from the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space appears to have “untied,” according to a paper published online in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Researchers believe the ribbon, first revealed in maps produced by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, forms in response to interactions between interstellar space and the heliosphere, the protective bubble in which the Earth and other planets reside. Sensitive neutral atom detectors aboard IBEX produce global maps of this region every six months.
Analyses of the first map, released last fall, suggest the ribbon is somehow ordered by the direction of the local interstellar magnetic field outside the heliosphere, influencing the structure of the heliosphere more than researchers had previously believed. The knot feature seen in the northern portion of the ribbon in the first map stood apart from the rest of the ribbon as the brightest feature at higher energies.
While the second map, released publicly with the just-published paper, shows the large-scale structure of the ribbon to be generally stable within the six-month period, changes are also apparent. The polar regions of the ribbon display lower emissions and the knot diminishes by as much as a third and appears to “untie” as it spreads out to both lower and higher latitudes.
“What we’re seeing is the knot pull apart as it spreads across a region of the ribbon,” says Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and an assistant vice president at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “To this day the science team can’t agree on exactly what causes the knot or the ribbon, but by comparing different sky maps we find the surprising result that the region is changing over relatively short time periods. Now we have to figure out why.”
As the IBEX spacecraft gathers a wealth of new information about the dynamic interactions at the edge of the solar system — the region of space that shields our solar system from the majority of galactic cosmic ray radiation — the IBEX team continues to study numerous theories about the source of the ribbon and its unusual features.
The paper, “The evolving heliosphere: Large-scale stability and time variations observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer,” by D.J. McComas, M. Bzowski, P. Frisch, G.B. Crew, M.A. Dayeh, R. DeMajistre, H.O. Funsten, S.A. Fuselier, M. Gruntman, P. Janzen, M.A. Kubiak, G. Livadiotis, E. Mobius, D.B. Reisenfeld, and N.A. Schwadron, was published online Sept. 29 in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research.
IBEX is the latest in NASA’s series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio leads and developed the mission with a team of national and international partners. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
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h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard, who offers us a look at the paper here
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Let’s see… as soon as we had the ability to “see” the ozone layer, we found a hole and assumed it was human activity causing it.
Someone started analyzing global temperatures, they found some warming, and assumed it was human activity causing it.
Now this. Gee, I wonder what human activity could be causing it? No doubt whatever it is, the solution will involve higher taxes and some sort of symbolic sacrifice…
@CodeTech: Well said!
Interesting article, but I have no idea what it means. Maybe “the sun did it” 😉 Whatever ‘it’ is…
If that ribbon unwinds really really fast, we’ll all be flung away far into the nether regions
Agreed. Once again its the greedy developed Western world, blasting all of its harmful radio waves into the heliosphere and causing the “knot” of the sacred solar system to “untie.” Using the precautionary principle we should form a U.N. Interplanetary Council and find ways to reduce all electronic emanations and save the heliosphere. Before it’s too late!!!!
Really neat, but why is everything always so “surprising”? When you’re looking at new things (and I don’t know of any Mayan records mentioning this ribbon), anything observed might be interesting or fascinating or exciting, but “surprising” implies expectations when there should be none.
Perhaps the sacrificing of several Greenpeace Eco-warriors and the members of the CRU Team atopone of the Aztec pyramids will fix it?
Relax, it is just the Dark Heat that found a way out, and is now dissipating of the Solar System. Well done, GISS. I didnt think you would find it!
It certainly looks as if there are large electical currents in space. It would be hard to argue that ribbons and sections of magnetic fields can move around like that without electric currents being involved. Are we allowed to talk about that possiblity by the keepers of the keys? Given the sparseness of the physical environment it rather supports the idea of non-particle electrical flow (plasmons, not electrons), meaning electric currents are waves in a medium, not particles travelling through emptiness.
Interesting.
OMG! The solar system is unravelling.
Quick! Tax something to make it stop.
Its just a double layer doing what a double layer does.
There was a prolong discussion on the subject in the original
post
I suggested that ribbon is a consequence of interaction between solar wind and
galactic magnetic field and will change with change in the solar activity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC3.htm
Dr. Svalgaard stated: the shape of the intersection of the HCS with the Heliopause changes wildly all the time due to solar rotation while the ribbon does not .
Now we find that the ribbon shape does change!
There was a prolong discussion on the subject in the original
post
I suggested that ribbon is a consequence of interaction between solar wind and
galactic magnetic field and will change with change in the solar activity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC3.htm
Dr. Svalgaard stated: the shape of the intersection of the HCS with the
Heliopause changes wildly all the time due to solar rotation while the ribbon does not
Now we find that the ribbon shape does change!
The hole in the Ozone production / maintenance at the South pole is due to the changes in the magnetic flux portion of the EUV and UV ariving from the sun. Due to following natural conservation of energy laws and that the magnetic reluctance [resistance to free passage of EUV UV] of O3 is three orders of magnitude less than O2, O3 forms to lower the energy drain from the solar energy passing through the area.
When the levels of EUV and UV drop off the O3 CAN drop back to O2 it “the consensus idea pushed”was thought that CFC’s were being utilized in the “increased destruction rate” of the O3 to develop the holes all by them selves. As it turns out the “natural variability” of the magnetic fields of the earth / sun solar wind interaction is still driving it as it was before we could see “it”.
What I think we are seeing in the production and modulation of this ribbon, where the Neutral sheet impinges upon the heliopause, and results in the concentration of neutral charged single atoms on the solar wind, as they arrive at the inner boundary of the heliopause, just past the shock front of the back pressure of the back log of particles, trying to spread out to defuse through the heliopause.
This play of the fluxing sheet of ionized neutral atoms creates turbulence that allows some of these atoms to reflect back toward the sun, like back splatter from a close hand gun wound[Still thinking about those exploding nonbelievers in the 10:10 video.]
as the wrinkles and folds of solar wind pile up and splash back toward the sun.
It may be that these effects are produced much the same as the Ozone hole, but just due to the density of the compression of the thin sheet of atoms buckling back upon themselves, creating the shape and angle of the ribbon. Due to the inductive flux of the polarity and speed of passage and varying density of the particles suspended in/on the background galactic fields as they are compressed around, give the distorted shape to the heliopause in response to the shifting of the outside and inside pressures as the heliopause skin, shifts like bodies of jelly fish do in the surf.
Every star in the galaxy shields itself the same way with expanded bubbles of ionized stellar wind, like particles of oxalic acid coated iron grains suspended in oils in ferro fluids, allowing them to push on each other from light years away by mutual deflection so as to avoid direct collisions.
The coils / lumps in the ribbon might be these resultant magnetic flux concentrations between the sun and other close stars, with the long term average of all of the interactions being felt across the whole system.
Thus affecting the balance by the shifting of the inductive drives between the sun and the heliopause shell, but because of the inertial damping of the planets, they shift via MHD dynamics, rotational speed, orbital momentum, and LOD drives between them to stabilize the solar system, giving rise to short term weather drivers and by long term extension climate variability.
I still think that by studying and understanding these long term interactions of ionized interstellar clouds and gasses, there magnetic conduction affects on the flowing and shape of galactic fields, and how they are responding to the stirring because of the local stars pushing through them, would give a better idea of when the next Ice age will be upon us.
I think Richard Holle is saying that the ‘Ribbon” does not exist. Its an instrument artifact. Example, in the middle of the ocean, when the sun sets, it looks ten times larger and light is diffused everywhere. If you measured those effects and plotted it would look as if there was a ribbon around the horizon, which of course there is not.
vukcevic says:
October 1, 2010 at 3:39 am
Dr. Svalgaard stated: the shape of the intersection of the HCS with the Heliopause changes wildly all the time due to solar rotation while the ribbon does not .
Now we find that the ribbon shape does change!
But not on the time scale of solar rotation. Keep the right perspective.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
October 1, 2010 at 3:31 am
It certainly looks as if there are large electical currents in space.
Large electric currents do flow in space. They are generated by the changing magnetic field. They do no work and carry no energy [being at right angle to the magnetic field].
vukcevic says:
October 1, 2010 at 3:43 am
I did not mean to “walk on” your post as we were both typing at the same time, but most of the fabric of my post comes from the threads I have read over the past several years by you and several others here.
Richard Holle says:
October 1, 2010 at 3:59 am
As it turns out the “natural variability” of the magnetic fields of the earth / sun solar wind interaction is still driving it as it was before we could see “it”.
No, the ozone layer is not generated by the variations of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic fields.
Grey Lensman says:
October 1, 2010 at 4:09 am
______________Reply;
I tried to say the effect is real, it appears where it does due to the interactions with/between the solar wind carried fields, and the interstellar galactic fields, much as the rings of Saturn are real, and not the same as a rainbow effect seen after rain, as you seem to be inferring.
Leif,
I am so proud of you!!!
You finally used the word rotation!
Leif Svalgaard says: October 1, 2010 at 4:14 am
But not on the time scale of solar rotation. Keep the right perspective.
Of course you know you are wrong there. Solar wind speed varies greatly hourly, daily, monthly.
After 10+ months all the fractions of different speeds are so hopelessly mixed up so that any reference to the solar rotation is completely lost; only angle that matters is the solar equatorial plane vs. the galactic plane.
Richard Holle says: October 1, 2010 at 4:15 am
You are welcome, my views are just a speculation.
You may be onto something, GreyMonk. There has been no serious human sacrifice to any sungod or other deity who could influence the climate for hundreds of years, and we’re supposed to be surprised that the gods are angry at us and causing “climate disruption’?
I guess high priest Al Gore isn’t quite honest when he tells us the carbon credits we buy will ensure us the favour of the gods.
So, how long have humans been observing this ribbon?
I made a point earlier, prior to Vukcevic, Leif, and Holle weighing in, because I didn’t think we’d been aware of or had been observing the ribbon for any significant amount of time. How long have we known about the ribbon and why should we be surprised that the knot unravels?
vukcevic says:
October 1, 2010 at 5:04 am
After 10+ months all the fractions of different speeds are so hopelessly mixed up so that any reference to the solar rotation is completely lost; only angle that matters is the solar equatorial plane vs. the galactic plane.
Again, you display deep ignorance. The issue was the direction of the magnetic field, remember? At a given point in the Heliosphere [the Earth, Jupiter, Pluto, Ribbon] solar rotation sweeps the Heliospheric Current Sheet by about every seven days on average. This means that the direction of the magnetic field at a given distance from the Sun changes 180 degrees every seven days, being East for a week, then West for a week, and so on.
Richard Holle says: October 1, 2010 at 4:15 am
You are welcome, my views are just a speculation.
JTW: …human sacrifice…
Having once resided in Swaziland for many years I can affirm that human sacrifice to influence crop production (arguably a climate related human sacrifice) did and probably still does happen. The ritual is rumoured to involve the murder of a child about 2 years old.
‘Ordinary’ human sacrifice for ‘strength’ and ‘luck’ known as ‘muti murders’ are pretty common on the Easttern side of Southern Africa, notably in Swaziland, Mpumalanga (Kangwane, Gazankhulu and Venda areas) and KwaZulu-Natal.
Further rumuors emerging from the never-finishing trial of David Simelane, a noted procurer of victims, have it that Saudi Arabia is one destination for body parts retrieved from those sacrificed. Who knows what is going on there in terms of the climate? Whatever it is, it is not working…
H.R. says:
October 1, 2010 at 5:34 am
So, how long have humans been observing this ribbon?
__________Reply; if you do a little research, by reading the original article;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/01/knot-in-the-ribbon-at-the-edge-of-the-solar-system-unties/#comment-496385
as mentioned by
#
#
vukcevic says:
October 1, 2010 at 3:43 am
There was a prolong discussion on the subject in the original
post<no longer the link but was a hyperlink to ^
Or if you just clip the term;
"NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft"
and drop into Google search, it will be very rewarding and much deeper in fullness and richness by doing the research for your self, be skeptical ask questions, but know how to look things up for your self, it is much more rewarding that way.