December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA’s Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.
“Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system,” explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. “This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all.”
Right: Voyager flies through the outer bounds of the heliosphere en route to interstellar space. A strong magnetic field reported by Opher et al in the Dec. 24, 2009, issue of Nature is delineated in yellow. Image copyright 2009, The American Museum of Natural History. [larger image]
The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will eventually bump into other, similar clouds in our arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers call the cloud we’re running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or “Local Fluff” for short. It’s about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it.
“The observed temperature and density of the local cloud do not provide enough pressure to resist the ‘crushing action’ of the hot gas around it,” says Opher.
So how does the Fluff survive? The Voyagers have found an answer.
“Voyager data show that the Fluff is much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected—between 4 and 5 microgauss*,” says Opher. “This magnetic field can provide the extra pressure required to resist destruction.”
Above: An artist’s concept of the Local Interstellar Cloud, also known as the “Local Fluff.” Credit: Linda Huff (American Scientist) and Priscilla Frisch (University of Chicago) [more]
NASA’s two Voyager probes have been racing out of the solar system for more than 30 years. They are now beyond the orbit of Pluto and on the verge of entering interstellar space—but they are not there yet.
“The Voyagers are not actually inside the Local Fluff,” says Opher. “But they are getting close and can sense what the cloud is like as they approach it.”
The Fluff is held at bay just beyond the edge of the solar system by the sun’s magnetic field, which is inflated by solar wind into a magnetic bubble more than 10 billion km wide. Called the “heliosphere,” this bubble acts as a shield that helps protect the inner solar system from galactic cosmic rays and interstellar clouds. The two Voyagers are located in the outermost layer of the heliosphere, or “heliosheath,” where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.
Voyager 1 entered the heliosheath in Dec. 2004; Voyager 2 followed almost 3 years later in Aug. 2007. These crossings were key to Opher et al‘s discovery.
Right: The anatomy of the heliosphere. Since this illustration was made, Voyager 2 has joined Voyager 1 inside the heliosheath, a thick outer layer where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas. Credit: NASA/Walt Feimer. [larger image]
The size of the heliosphere is determined by a balance of forces: Solar wind inflates the bubble from the inside while the Local Fluff compresses it from the outside. Voyager’s crossings into the heliosheath revealed the approximate size of the heliosphere and, thus, how much pressure the Local Fluff exerts. A portion of that pressure is magnetic and corresponds to the ~5 microgauss Opher’s team has reported in Nature.
The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now. Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space. On the other hand, astronauts wouldn’t have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next.
“There could be interesting times ahead!” says Opher.
To read the original research, look in the Dec. 24, 2009, issue of Nature for Opher et al’s article, “A strong, highly-tilted interstellar magnetic field near the Solar System.”
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tallbloke (11:15:20) :
If the magnetic fields of these different velocity plasmas get tangled up and force each other around, that’s going to generate quite big perturbance in the electric field isn’t it?
Your fundamental problem is not to understand [in spite of my hundreds of posts] that there can be no electric fields in a plasma except in situations where [for very brief periods] the magnetic field is changing rapidly due to movements of the plasma. In such situations, the electric fields are almost instantly shorted out in an explosion [solar flare, aurora, magnetic storms, etc]. Such reconnection events do not happen often in deep space and when they do there are not enough particles around to create much of an explosion.
vukcevic (10:45:43) :
Leif Svalgaard (09:42:57) :
“There is some loose ‘correlation’ between the emotional agitation of inmates of lunatic asylums and crossing of the heliospheric current sheet two days later.”
Your idea of lunatics’ agitation by solar events could be of …
You got it backwards. Because of the delay, it must be the lunatics causing the HCS crossing. I actually once [in 1976] visited such a place [in the USSR] and was shown some charts purported to prove this. Same story: “If man declared many of natural riddles ‘nonsense’, the humanity would not be what it is; individuals’ curiosity and enterprise are forces moving us forward!”
@kadaka
I know it is a longshot, but it could work.
Obviously they need more experiments and tests. Given they are working on a shoe-string budget and on spare time I don’t expect they will come up with something in a short time. Anyway, the theory was published in peer review journals a decade ago and the mathematics is pretty solid.
Professor March is very prudent on the claims and have stated that, albeit sure to be right he understand that the great majority will be only convinced by a self-contained drive able to float in the air.
If the Mach Principle is real and an EM drive can be built it will need new materials for the capacitor to work consistently and don’t break after minutes or hours.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/mach-effect-interview-with-paul-march.html
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=13020.660
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1488
I suppose you know the of Clarke first Law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke’s first law
I hope with the demise of the AGW a few millions will be redirected to funding this and other similar research projects.
James F. Evans (02:56:55) :
“Positing a physical analysis where a force is either present or not depending on relative motion is a first slippery step into pseudo-science.”
It can when the force is explicitly dependent on the relative motion. And, saying “where a force is either present or not” suggests some sort of discontinuous change, which would indeed be bizarre. But, the force is proportional to relative velocity, so it is a smooth and continuous function of it.
The Lorentz force equation is F = q*(E + V X B). To an observer moving with the charge q, there is no relative motion, and the V X B term, where V is the relative velocity of B, is effectively an electric field. It’s all a matter of semantics.
“Leaving the science up to the scientists failed humanity.”
I understand your frustration, but as in most things in this world, it is not either/or. There is an ideal of Science, and then there is science as practiced by humans. But, just because the latter is imperfect, one cannot deny the great strides made by scientists in general. ‘Trust but verify’ is always a prudent policy in any dealings with humankind.
anna v (10:27:07) :
“…an electron, for example, is both a wave and a particle…”
No, it is a particle which moves with apparent wavelike properties in common experience, just like photons. See here.
Leif Svalgaard (11:31:17) :
Such reconnection events do not happen often in deep space and when they do there are not enough particles around to create much of an explosion.
Coronal holes are quite long lived, so there will be a continuous stream of faster particles heading out in a spiral from the sun to the heliopause. This radiating spiral will be continuously moving through the field of slower moving particles.
Suppose the fast wind is at 600kmh. In 27.4 days, the next wave of fast wind sets off from the sun. The previous wind of the spiral will be ~400,000Km ahead of it, which is around the distance from the Earth to it’s moon, or 30 Earth diameters.
Co-incidentally, someone on this blog posed a link to raw UAH data a while back which showed curious 0.2-0.4C fluctuations in global air temperature on timescales which varied from around 20 days to a month or so.
Hmmmm.
Nasif Nahle (10:52:05) :
larger changes, i.e. the Maunder Minimum, have without doubt measurable fluctuations in the geomagnetic field.
Your language is so imprecise that it almost does not carry information, and what it says is incorrect. The geomagnetic field as measured at the surface has an internal part [99% or larger] and a tiny external part. The latter derives its variability from the Sun [and a very small part from the Moon – tidal action]. This part varies less when solar activity is low.
Leif Svalgaard (11:40:39) :
“…….I actually once [in 1976] visited such a place [in the USSR] and was shown some charts purported to prove this.”
I was to go in the summer of 68 (to CCCP, I meant), but Czechoslovakia happen.
Did you miss this link:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
(tallbloke might comment) or just another coincidence?
In the literature man following his imagination is a poet or novelist; in the science he is a lunatic.
I like quote from
Mirco (11:56:24) :
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke’s first law. “
tallbloke (13:14:04) :
Coronal holes are quite long lived, so there will be a continuous stream of faster particles heading out in a spiral from the sun to the heliopause.
No, the solar wind moves out radially. The spiral is an illusion, just like the seeming spiral of water drops from a rotating lawn sprinkler.
This radiating spiral will be continuously moving through the field of slower moving particles.
No, the faster particles does not move ‘through’ the slower ones, but scoops them up into a compression region. Imagine you had a throng of people complete covering a street [like during a demonstration]. Now, imagine the riot police charging the folks and with their shields pressing the crowd back. At the interface between the demonstrators and the police, the density of people will be high: this is the compression region. The magnetic field acts as the shields preventing the two regions from interpenetrate.
Suppose the fast wind is at 600kmh. In 27.4 days, the next wave of fast wind sets off from the sun. The previous wind of the spiral will be ~400,000Km ahead of it, which is around the distance from the Earth to it’s moon, or 30 Earth diameters.
No, the distance between the ‘waves’ will be 600 km*24(hours)*3600[secs)*25(days) = 1.3 billion km = 9 AU. Since there often are 4 high speed streams per solar rotation, the distance between compression regions will be 9/4 = 2 AU. If the the heliopause is 80 AU distant, there will be 80/2 = 40 such ‘mirrors’ between the Sun and an incoming cosmic ray.
tallbloke (13:14:04) :
This radiating spiral will be continuously moving through the field of slower moving particles.
Think about it [for a change 🙂 ]. If the streams were moving in a spiral, each stream on its own spiral, they wouldn’t collide and there would be no compression regions. The compression comes about because the wind moves out radially so that in the same direction you have wind with different speeds.
Nasif Nahle (10:52:05) :
“http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SSN-GMF.gif
From your graphs one can deduce that small changes in sunspots number have imperceptible effects in the geomagnetic field, present over there, however; larger changes, i.e. the Maunder Minimum, have without doubt measurable fluctuations in the geomagnetic field.”
The changes in the GMF cannot be possibly caused directly by the solar activity, they far to great, measured in 1000s of nanoTesla, while solar storms at E’s up to 100 or less, and last a day or two. Solar MF changes polarity far too frequently so cumulative effect would be zero, and as I mentioned, the GMF changes precede the solar ones. Good doc S. say it is ‘nonsense’ (I am half convinced it is coincidence), but again LOD appears to follow similar pattern.
May be it is ‘fluffy cloud’ after all
WOW!
Thanx Anthony. We get to see world class scientists discussing science, all because of one post. Simply mind boggling this thing we call the internet.
A big thanx to all you scientists who have taken the time to come here and fill my life, once again, with childlike wonder!
WOW!
vukcevic (13:33:46) :
Did you miss this link:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
I normally don’t look at your links [ 🙂 ], but apart from the cherry picking of the location and the fact that lately the two curves diverge, it is quite possible that the LOD is influenced by the same movements inside the Earth that are driving the geomagnetic dynamo.
Mirco (11:56:24)
There is a difference between being wrong [impossible] and spewing nonsense [‘not even wrong’].
@Mirco (11:56:24) :
You have to watch the interpretation of that law. Sure, as technology moves onward practically anything is possible. Science, from a practical standpoint, is about learning what we don’t know, and there is certainly enough of that to keep humanity occupied for centuries to come.
But while it may be possible to have interstellar drives that move us around relatively quickly, nothing says this “Woodward effect” will be used in any of them. Even if it is proven to exist, it might also be shown to be something that comes from something larger, from grander theories that incorporate these observations. And there is still the energy cost to figure in. If it takes much more energy to run a Mach-Lorentz thruster than it does to simply chuck mass out the back, we will be chucking mass.
Stating something is absolutely impossible is always questionable, seems likely it will be figured out how to do it someday. You better have some hard research to back that up. Stating something is possible is stating a natural given, whether you are a distinguished but elderly scientist or not. But while you can state an object or action may be possible, there are no guarantees it has to work by a specific principle, or be a specific sort of a more general classification. Interstellar drives? Already have them. Ones as discussed using the discussed principles, let alone practical ones that can be efficiently deployed? Absolutely impossible, currently not, but very much looking very very unlikely.
Leif Svalgaard (13:43:54) :
“The spiral is an illusion, just like the seeming spiral of water drops from a rotating lawn sprinkler.”
I’m not taking sides here, just want to point out that the water drops from a rotating lawn sprinkler do have tangential, as well as radial, momentum. It’s not the same for photons, except for some small frame dragging effect, since their radial momentum is so much greater than that which could be imparted tangentially.
“ralph (07:43:15) :
>>Kaboom (13:18:30) :
>>Don’t forget the obscene, war-like message in 55 languages
>>attached to the Voyager craft, on a 33 1/3 r.pm. phonograph
>>record (whatever that might be!)
Que???
The message says something like “greetings from the people of Earth”. What is your bitch with that?”
Well, Ralph, the problem is firstly the pictorial of the man and woman holding up their right hand in greeting. This has been interpreted by the Qxxku people as the most obscene gesture possible, a sort of visual “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”, together with some physically unlikely sexual connotations.
Secondly, many inter-stellar races (such as the K’K’Kulla) have interpreted the word “Greetings!” as meaning “We are declaring war upon your puny planet. Prepare to die!”
As you can see, a diplomatic nightmare. That’s my “bitch”.
Richard: “We sure got our moneys worth with those two Voyager satellites. They don’t make them any more like that!”
Yeah! And they get about 20 million miles per gallon!
Leif Svalgaard (13:43:54) :
tallbloke (13:14:04) :
Suppose the fast wind is at 600kmh. In 27.4 days, the next wave of fast wind sets off from the sun. The previous wind of the spiral will be ~400,000Km ahead of it, which is around the distance from the Earth to it’s moon, or 30 Earth diameters.
~
No, the distance between the ‘waves’ will be 600 km*24(hours)*3600[secs)*25(days) = 1.3 billion km = 9 AU. Since there often are 4 high speed streams per solar rotation, the distance between compression regions will be 9/4 = 2 AU. If the the heliopause is 80 AU distant, there will be 80/2 = 40 such ‘mirrors’ between the Sun and an incoming cosmic ray.
Thank you for the reply Leif.
Tallbloke, a couple of links you may be interested in of the IMF in the ecliptic plane.
http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/recent/javascript_movie.html
http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/recent/ecimf.html
vukcevic (13:51:45) :
The changes in the GMF cannot be possibly caused directly by the solar activity, they far to great, measured in 1000s of nanoTesla, while solar storms at E’s up to 100 or less, and last a day or two. Solar MF changes polarity far too frequently so cumulative effect would be zero, and as I mentioned, the GMF changes precede the solar ones. Good doc S. say it is ‘nonsense’ (I am half convinced it is coincidence), but again LOD appears to follow similar pattern.
May be it is ‘fluffy cloud’ after all
~
Could be some other indictators (2) big ones that I am thinking of, that are implicating “fluffy” as well. I’m going to try to keep my foot out of mouth now, so don’t ask.
Tallbloke, one more link for you.
Links to the movie of IMF in the ecliptic for Oct. 2003 when multiple solar events were occurring. Pretty cool to compare the then and now. You can see, I think the compression Leif was talking about.
http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/index.html
Forecasts during the Halloween Events period:
Real-time forecast of ecliptic plane IMF during the October, 2003 swarm of solar events:
AVI zipped movie: 10 AU (6-hr time step, includes locations of Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft)
Some of you may enjoy reading the 1952 Science Fiction novel “The Currents of Space” by Isaac Asimov; the story line may be strikingly familiar. A summary can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Currents_of_Space
There are scientific inaccuracies but still a good read!
Mike
LOL: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke’s first law
The fact is the majority here are elderly…
The only way to arrive at a new port is to leave the port where our boat is anchored. It is a method. BTW: The electrical theory has to its favor that it can be tested in the lab.
vukcevic (13:51:45) :
Nasif Nahle (10:52:05) :
“http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SSN-GMF.gif
From your graphs one can deduce that small changes in sunspots number have imperceptible effects in the geomagnetic field, present over there, however; larger changes, i.e. the Maunder Minimum, have without doubt measurable fluctuations in the geomagnetic field.”
The changes in the GMF cannot be possibly caused directly by the solar activity, they far to great, measured in 1000s of nanoTesla, while solar storms at E’s up to 100 or less, and last a day or two. Solar MF changes polarity far too frequently so cumulative effect would be zero, and as I mentioned, the GMF changes precede the solar ones. Good doc S. say it is ‘nonsense’ (I am half convinced it is coincidence), but again LOD appears to follow similar pattern. May be it is ‘fluffy cloud’ after all
I’m thinking in another possibility; I don’t know what you would opine if I derive a common origin for both fluctuations, SMF and GMF. I supposse the GMF is more affected than SMF. Perhaps that “fluffy cloud” is behind both oscillations? Could it be possible?
Nasif Nahle (08:34:06) :
Interesting graph about the relation between ICR and variability of temperature, it proves temperature it is a result of the interaction, and just one of the many interactions between cosmos and earth. CO2 is part of life, and life the way nature has to overcome entropy.
Bart (14:37:34) :
just want to point out that the water drops from a rotating lawn sprinkler do have tangential, as well as radial, momentum.
But once they have left the sprinkler, they don’t continue to curve in a spiral. The spiral effect comes from the sprinkler head rotating.
It’s not the same for photons
The solar wind is not photons, but protons [and they also have a small tangential component] so obey the same rule as the water droplets.