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A group of scientists at Berkeley’s Space Sciences Lab are in an excited state over the discovery of ions and neutral atoms found in the gaping maw of the interstellar abyss. The machines responsible for penetrating the unfathomable nothingness are the STEREO pair of spacecraft (not to be confused with this Friday’s Stereopticon Ice Cream Social).
OK, to be fair to the science, it’s not technically interstellar—that would require all the little atoms to go through termination shocks, heliopause and various other flashy hot things.
Hot flashes aside, the discovery resolves a discrepancy in energy radiated by the sun into the outer parts of the solar system. As we understand it, the solar wind loses some energy as it passes the termination shock and deals with interstellar forces—where the energy went was anyone’s guess until recently, when said Berkeley science people discovered that it goes into energetic and uncharged atoms.
The discovery of the neutral atoms was a clever deduction as the STEREO craft are made to detect certain charged particles whose intensity depends on the magnetic field, yet these particle intensities were insensitive to it. Logic wins again, fans!
We’re fairly sure this is an example of scientific progress—sorry, postmodern philosophy!—that shows exactly why Cal is a leading research university.
First Images Of Solar System’s Invisible Frontier [ScienceDaily]
Voyager Squashes View of Solar System [NASA]
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Aug 24, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[...] – bookmarked by 5 members originally found by illihit on 2008-08-10 It’s Lonely Out in Space, on Such a Timely Flight http://clog.dailycal.org/2008/07/02/its-lonely-out-in-space-on-such-a-timely-flight/ – bookmarked [...]