From the UK Telegraph – source link
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.
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:23AM BST 19 Oct 2008
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 what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future.
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing.
Dr David McComas, principal investigator on the IBEX mission, said: “It is a fascinating interaction that our sun has with the galaxy surrounding us. This million mile an hour wind inflates this protective bubble that keeps us safe from intergalactic cosmic rays.
“With less pressure on the inside, the interaction at the boundaries becomes weaker and the heliosphere as a whole gets smaller.”
If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.
This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.
But Dr McComas added that it was still unclear exactly what would happen if the heliosphere continued to weaken or what even what the timescale for changes in the heliosphere are.
He said: “There is no imminent danger, but it is hard to know what the future holds. Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects.
“It is likely that there are natural variations in solar wind pressure and over time it will either stabilise or start going back up.”
(hat tip to Dvid Gladstone)
‘Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink…’ but Carl Rove and Dick Cheney sinisterly declined comment and refused to return phone calls from the New York Times.
“There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.”
The intragalactic dark radiant energy in the Milky Way Galaxy theory, as a cause of global wackiness, er, warming, has credibility? 🙂
/sarc off
See the following web site archive for that early cycle 24 tiny tim.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9778-first-sunspot-of-next-solar-cycle-glimpsed.html
There is a reference to Leif at the end as an alternative view of the strength of cycle 24 from that of Hathaway.
This is the typical [misleading] NASA announcement. They are under pressure to show that their data and findings are extraordinary and spectacular breakthroughs, and so overhype everything. Here http://www.leif.org/research/SolarWindFlowPressure.png is a graph of the solar wind flow pressure [normalized to Earth’s distance] since spacecraft measurements began. The Ulysses data refer to the two red circles. As should be obvious, the last polar passes are indeed lower than the previous passes [at solar minimum], but this is just part of the normal waxing and waning of the solar wind. There has been several times in the past where the flow pressure was the same or even lower, so no big deal, and no alarms should be sounded. It is like discovering that it is colder in winter than in summer.
Pamela Gray (19:20:48) :
Is it just me or are these sunspots that show cycle 24 polarity starting out nearer the equator than other ramping up cycles
Yes, it is just you.
Leif, when someone lobs one across the plate like that, the best response is usually to resist temptation ~ jeez (not posting in moderator role, jus little ol’ jeez)
Isn’t this just another confirmation of what we skeptics have been saying all along: the substantial majority of recent warming stems from variation in direct and indirect solar effects?
[…] Sun’s protective ‘bubble’ is shrinking […]
jeez (20:15:02) :
Leif, when someone lobs one across the plate like that, the best response is usually to resist temptation ~ jeez (not posting in moderator role, jus little ol’ jeez)
Since you did not supply a timed or named reference, I don’t know what you are referring to. If it was Pamela Gray (19:20:48) : I’ll just remark that there was no temptation, I was simply telling Pamela that there is nothing unusual about the latitude of the SC24 spots.
[…] by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment.” From Watts Up With That? Original source: Telegraph.co.uk _____________________________________________________ 20 […]
CERN have been sufficiently convinced that very high energy galactic origin cosmic rays are a factor in global cloud cover and therefore of possible significance to climate variability to have set up a cloud chamber experiment at the LHC.
Considering the unexpected and so far unexplained changes taking place in the heliosphere it is unfortunate that this experiment will be delayed past it’s 2010 date by the recent damage to the LHC.
Data from such an experiment would have been invaluable as a base line measurement to test the effects of changes in these incoming high energy galactic particles on global cloud cover and therefore the global climate.
I think a few years ago there were a couple of papers that looked at and tried to check on cosmic ray levels over some millions of years at the global surface using alterations caused by cosmic ray debris impacts to the crystal structure of certain elements in ancient rock formations.
If a means of checking previous cosmic ray levels could be found then you could lay bets that the planet has been here innumerable times in the past.
To frighten the horses a bit more, this sort of low solar activity plus the consequent changes to the heliosphere and the galactic cosmic ray increase and the possibility of a resultant increased global cloud cover could just happen to have been the trigger that helped, along with other orbital changes, to tip the globe over into the ice ages in earth’s past history.
As for danger to life on earth, just another throwaway line from a scientist who probably does not quite realise that this sort of off the cuff comment is likely to be taken up by some ignorant journo who has no scruples about accuracy but just wants that all important grossly overblown scoop which will frighten the hell out of the public once again and raise sales.
Could get interesting when the Doomsday warmers meet the Doomsday coldies at Armageddon!
mark wagner (20:16:15) :
Isn’t this just another confirmation of what we skeptics have been saying all along: the substantial majority of recent warming stems from variation in direct and indirect solar effects?
No, it is not.
I came over to check out the posts today, it’s pretty scary really when you realize how the sun can change so much. Life has survived for millions of years but nothing says it doesn’t have shortened life spans or high cancer rates for large portions of those time periods.
ROM (20:52:34) :
To frighten the horses a bit more, this sort of low solar activity plus the consequent changes to the heliosphere and the galactic cosmic ray increase and the possibility of a resultant increased global cloud cover could just happen to have been the trigger that helped, along with other orbital changes, to tip the globe over into the ice ages in earth’s past history.
Leif Svalgaard (20:10:04) :
This is the typical [misleading] NASA announcement. They are under pressure to show that their data and findings are extraordinary and spectacular breakthroughs, and so overhype everything. Here http://www.leif.org/research/SolarWindFlowPressure.png is a graph of the solar wind flow pressure [normalized to Earth’s distance] since spacecraft measurements began. The Ulysses data refer to the two red circles. As should be obvious, the last polar passes are indeed lower than the previous passes [at solar minimum], but this is just part of the normal waxing and waning of the solar wind. There has been several times in the past where the flow pressure was the same or even lower, so no big deal, and no alarms should be sounded. It is like discovering that it is colder in winter than in summer.
Leif, I would never be one to take offense to a simple answer, which I know, in your case, is backed by logic. So if others thought something off about your answer to me, I didn’t.
Pamela Gray (18:48:43) :
I too think this is cyclical. Every 22 or so years the cosmic ray measures flatten at the top instead of peaking. Leif has said this flat, peak, flat, peak ….
I am not sure we are in a typical cycle….this is showing signs of something bigger. The polar polarity strength is weaking….SC23 is prob still going,(way tooo long). We could see a phase catastrophe very soon.
And Neptune and Uranus are nearly lined up behind Jupiter.
Check it out for yourself, next year it will all be happening.
http://math-ed.com/Resources/GIS/Geometry_In_Space/java1/Temp/TLVisPOrbit.html
I am trying to find data of the equatorial rotation speed of the sun….there is some suggestion it slowed during the Dalton. Does anyone have a link?
‘Might we already be a quarter of the way to maximum?’
Yes, if it is a Maunder type event, the spikes of a shoulder will appear in the normal ramp up and then the curtain falls back down. But we don’t know that anymore than we know when the next named Minimum will suddenly dawn upon us.
See page 16 in LONG-TERM SOLAR CYCLE EVOLUTION: REVIEW OF RECENT
DEVELOPMENTS
I. G. USOSKIN1 and K. MURSULA2
I don’t know where you find this but nobrainer had it posted in another topic.
As for the warmies and coldies, all I want to know is which type of crops to plant to actually get something out of it other than wasted space plants.
You know, the basic stuff, food.
On a lighter note, if the cosmic rays gets deadly, we can all marvel at the sheer genius of the Pryamids, Stongehenge and start building Fred Flintstone huts.
They say the Stone Age really rocked out.
Possible source for this article:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/23sep_solarwind.htm
Hmmmm.
Well this might be an explanation for:
1. Why the Mayan calendar ends on 2012.
2. Why at one point in history the number of humans on the planet were under 10,000.
3. I’m going to build an underground bunker so I can survive this and emerge as the last living man! I am Legend!!
Now I need to win the damn lottery to pay for it.
[…] Continued here: Comment on Sun’s protective ‘bubble’ is shrinking by Richard deSousa […]
Hmmmm.
“Could get interesting when the Doomsday warmers meet the Doomsday coldies at Armageddon!”
Like that scene on South Park where everyone, but the Mormons, end up in Hell.
To paraphrase:
“So who was that was responsible for destroying the Earth?”
“It was the Mormons. The Mormons people. Ok form a line …”
What is this, science journalism day?
It seems there always has to be at least one line of hype such as this in these type of stories:
Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects.
I can accept variations in the solar wind, but down to virtually nothing? Come on now. That seems to take it out of the realm of science.
Robert Bateman (21:13:17)
See page 16 in LONG-TERM SOLAR CYCLE EVOLUTION: REVIEW OF RECENT
DEVELOPMENTS
I. G. USOSKIN1 and K. MURSULA2
I don’t know where you find this but nobrainer had it posted in another topic.
There you go Robert.
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/SolPhys_Review_proof.pdf