Solar System Passing Through Highly Magnetised Interstellar Cloud

Hi all,

Found this interesting story about how our Solar sytem is passing though a Cosmic Cloud made up of Hydrogen and Helium.

Some the technical jargon is a bit much for my Brain, but I can wrap my mind round some of it!

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.

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

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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

So, i'm guessing that this "Fluff Cloud" is compressing the Heliosphere right? So what implications can this have for people on Earth?

Can this highly magnetised gas have any effect on our planet our ourselves?

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There could be interesting times ahead!" says Opher

The discovery has implications for the future

Interesting times and implications, but what sort of interesting times and implications? What does he mean by this?

I should note also, this cloud is

much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected—between 4 and 5 microgauss

and

A microgauss is one millionth of a gauss, a unit of magnetic field strength popular among astronomers and geophysicists. Earth's magnetic field is about 0.5 gauss

Im not sure by the article, exactly how far into this cloud we are, but looks like we are in there now.

Be interesting to know what you all think about this. Seems like a big discovery to me.

g.

science.nasa.gov...





[edit on 23-12-2009 by grantbeed]

[edit on 23-12-2009 by grantbeed]

[edit on 23-12-2009 by grantbeed]

Mayebe our voices will be all high and stuff?

reply to post by Phlynx


Now thats change i can believe in!

but seriously im thinking this is only their guess as to what it is. Im sure well see something crazy soon........

Very interesting. Especially since i heard something about this a couple of years ago from somewhere that escapes me at the moment.

To come from Nature gives it much credibility. I'm now going to have to go do some digging!

Again, very interesting, thanks

Let's not try holding our breath.

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.

From the artists' conceptions, it seems like we've probably been in one cloud for a while now.



[edit on 12/23/2009 by Phage]

your right...some of my tools in my garage are up against ceiling and my iron bookends had to be taped down to the shelf!! ..... sorry i couldn't help myself, but it does raise the question of whether the intrumentation on our satellites will be comprimised, or if there will be some affect on our weather patterns, due to a change of the electrical properties of the storm clouds surrounding the earth.

[edit on 23-12-2009 by jimmyx]

Being magnetized and all the helium and nitrogen could cause some awesome auroras!

"About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas."

Could this possibly be the real reason for "global warming" as we are passing through these gases?

It will be interesting to see what more comes of this. We could be experiencing effects of this now without even knowing it.

Its an amazing discovery that i'm sure will lead to much more interesting information.



[edit on 23-12-2009 by grantbeed]

I think it's great that we are finding out such amazing things about Space. All the new technology that we put up there seems to be paying off. were finding out things we never even knew existed.

Good stuff!

well, I see this as a huge blow to standard universe model because, I quote:

interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist.

maybe the standard model physics says it should not exist, but not Electric Universe model for which this is something normal...

how many more proof do arrogant mainstream scientists need to include electricity into their faulty gravity only model of the universe?

gravity does not create magnetic fields!




s&f

[edit on 24-12-2009 by donhuangenaro]

Originally posted by savageheart
"About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas."

Could this possibly be the real reason for "global warming" as we are passing through these gases?

Doubtful. The heat is not really transferable in a vacuum except by radiation such as that emitted by the sun or matter exchange and it sounds like the cloud is outside of our solar system and not emitting light.

Obsidience

Its probably completely unrelated but I sat and watched one of the best thunderstorms last night down in the south of England....

Its cold, heavy rain/hail and sleet, iced roads and wham - a storm that lasted around 90 minutes with flashes making the power fluctuate and phones go out. Im not used to witnessing thunderstorms in the winter and seems new to me (but probably isn't).

I just wonder what effect this cloud would have on our atmosphere and the relationship to the build up of electro-static???

Either way it was a great show last night.

As it's too early for me to sync into a studious frame of mind,

i would point out that the MilkyWay Galaxy is colliding with a smaller Galaxy as we speak... ( long term process)
Our Solar system is intersecting an 'arm' of the MilkyWay...and that fact
may very well explain just Why this interstellar cloud-of-fluff was unexpected.


some years back this "recent" fluff-cloud discovery was made,
superstitious folks conjured up the story of 'the Photon Belt' so that the stories Spin might have some credibility.
Some years back, it was accepted by the academics, that our local star cluster was actually in a sort-of-Bubble (see the OP image of the local cluster)


one more thing about this nebulous, energetic cloud...
a Star Trek episode addressed a similar model once, and found it almost impossible to extricate themselves from the sentient 'cloud' as the time/space dimensions were all warped out of shape...
the same thing a highly charged magnetic cloud would do in the present reality--

-i think our contemporary screenwriters imaginations preceded our arrival at this point in time & space

ADD:
there is also threads/items: " LaViolette, Fulcanelli: Approaching Galactic Storm"... which just has the concept correct.
but the source (a BH at Galactic Center) is a little different...

PONDER:
Is this energetic 'Cloud'... the 'Army-of-Angels' & the '2nd coming' as prophecy holds that everyone will see; coming 'from-on-high' ?

[edit on 24-12-2009 by St Udio]