Timothy Birdnow

This is interesting; while we have always known the solar wind acts to deflect cosmic rays from the solar system, we had no idea of just how important the solar wind is, and how fierce is the battle between it and the harsh environment of interstellar space. The Voyager probes are discovering things nobody ever expected.

From the article:

While Voyager 2 was able to cruise seamlessly through the heliopause in about a day, researchers found that the plasmabarrier was significantly hotter and thicker than previous studies estimated, effectively forming a physical shield between our solar system and interstellar space. According to study co-author Edward Stone, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who has worked on the Voyager program since it launched in 1977, this shield stops about 70% of cosmic radiation from breaking into our solar system.

"The heliopause is the contact surface where two winds [collide] — the wind from the sun and the wind from space, which comes from supernovathat exploded millions of years ago," Stone said in a news conference about the new Voyager studies. "Only about 30% of what's outside of the bubble can get in."

[...]

According to radiation data collected by V2 on its interstellar journey, temperatures in the heliopause reached up to 89,000 degrees Fahrenheit (31,000 degrees Celsius) — roughly double the temperature that previous astronomical models predicted, suggesting a far more violent clash between the solar wind and cosmic rays than scientists ever predicted.

While the heliopause's hot, thick wall of plasma protects our solar system from most of the harmful rays darting through space, the researchers also found that the boundaries of the heliopause are not quite as uniform as anticipated. The edge of heliopause is not a perfect "bubble" after all, but contains porous holes that allow interstellar radiation to leak in at certain points.

At any rate, nobody expected any of this; this shows how much we have to learn, and how claims such as "the science is settled" is balderdash.

It also suggests that interstellar travel may be impossible, or at least far more difficult than Gene Roddenberry or any of the other sci-fi types seem to think. In fact, if we were to accelerate a spaceship to a good fraction of lightspeed we would see this cosmic radiation coming on as gamma rays, and it would fry everyone aboard. It would take massive shielding, and probably an artificial heliosphere to protect the ship's payload. It means things just got even more complex.

The more we learn about the space between stars the more obvious it becomes there is a lot out there, and a lot happening.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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