Your Web News in One Place

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

Sign up for GreenGeeks web hosting
August 11, 2020 12:53 pm GMT

We all live in a deflated croissant, says NASA

According to a recently published paper in Nature Astronomy, NASA scientists have "developed a new prediction of the shape of the bubble surrounding our solar system using a model developed with data from NASA missions."

We already knew that solar winds from our sun created a sort of magnetic bubble around the planets in our solar system, separating them from the interstellar medium the rest of the space in Outer Space. Scientists have tried to understand the shape of this solar wind bubble, to better understand its relationship to the Sun's orbit and its position within the greater galaxy. In the past, they've usually understood this directional force to be somewhat comet-like, with a rounded leading edge or "nose" that casts solar wind trails in its wake.

But thanks to new advancements, they now think the solar system is a and I quote "deflated croissant." From NASA (emphasis added):

NASAs New Horizons mission has provided measurements of pick-up ions, particles that are ionized out in space and are picked up and move along with the solar wind. Because of their distinct origins from the solar wind particles streaming out from the Sun, pick-up ions are much hotter than other solar wind particles and its this fact that Ophers work hinges on.

There are two fluids mixed together. You have one component that is very cold and one component that is much hotter, the pick-up ions, said Opher, a professor of astronomy at Boston University. If you have some cold fluid and hot fluid, and you put them in space, they wont mix they will evolve mostly separately.

Read the rest

Original Link: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/11/we-all-live-in-a-deflated-croi.html

Share this article:    Share on Facebook
View Full Article