Halloween Solar Storm Nearing Heliopause

PipianJ writes "Various sources are reporting that NASA has been tracking the Halloween solar storms of last year as they head towards the end of the solar system and the beginning of interstellar space, the heliopause, in the near future. In related news, scientists now believe that it was solar storms that ripped water from Mars, causing it to be the dry barren wasteland it is today."

Comments

How Exactly

[GiveMeLinux]

(for the astronomers in the crowd) ...would the solar storms "rip" all the water from the planet, and then where would it all go?

Re:How Exactly

[akincisor]

Mars has very little atmosphere, and almost no protection from radiation. This renders the surface open to bombardment, and thanks to low gravity and low magnetism, the atmosphere leaks away into space. The article states that the water that might have been on mars 'boiled off' due to solar radiation.

Re:How Exactly

[SeanTobin]

The theory is fairly simple. You have a planet with little or no magnetic field to deflect the solar wind. Add to that a relatively weak gravatational field to keep the gasses stuck to the planet and you have this situation..

Water vapor ends up in the upper atmosphere. High speed solar wind strikes the atmosphere and carries it away. This results in lower atmospheric pressure leading to an increased amount of liquid water turing to vapor and being carried away as well.

As far as where it would go, its generally carried "out" in the direction of the solar wind.

Re:How Exactly

[Detritus]

My astronomy professor believed that the basic problem was the low mass of Mars. This resulted in a high surface/volume ratio compared to the Earth, causing Mars to cool off more quickly and the interior of the planet solidified, shutting off its magnetic field. Combined with a lower escape velocity, this allowed most of the atmosphere to leak out into space and be stripped away by the solar wind.

Re:How Exactly

[Graff]

I suspect that Mars *did* once have a magnetic field. My guess is that some really *big* impact caused sufficient vulcanism to blow enough magma out to sap the energy from the core and stop the magneto.

One of the theories is that since Mars is smaller than Earth it may have cooled off faster. Since the magnetic field of a planet is generated by the spinning of the core if a planet were to cool sufficiently the core would slow down (the speeds of the core and the crust would begin to match) and thus the magnetic field would weaken.

This theory is supported by the fact that there is little or no tectonic activity currently occurring on Mars, although there certainly has been tectonic activity in the past.

Re:How Exactly

[orthogonal]

(for the astronomers in the crowd) ...would the solar storms "rip" all the water from the planet, and then where would it all go?

"Solar storms". That's what they want you to believe.

But the Fremen know it was the giant Sandworms.

Re:How Exactly

[ars]

The volume of a sphere is: 4/3 Pi r^3
The surface area of a sphere is: 4 Pi r^2

So the volume of a sphere goes up as it's radius (width) to the power of 3, but the area only goes up with the power of 2. So the volume increases much much faster then the area does.

Ex:

^1 | ^2 | ^3
5 | 25 | 125
10 2 times as much | 100 4 times as much | 1000 8 times as much
15 3 times as much | 225 9 times as much | 3375 27 times as much

As you can see from my little chart, to the power of 3 grows way way faster then ^2 does. Power of two grew from 4 times as much as the first entry to 9 times as much, but power of 3 grew from 8 to 27 times as much as the first entry.

Re:How Exactly

[Bi()hazard]

This is due to differences in how Mars formed. Irregularities in the field of primordial gas present in the solar system before the formation of planets occurred in such a way that the Earth arose from a hard metallic core rotating quickly, but Mars formed from a less dense and dynamic clump of matter. As a result the Earth has a spinning metallic core that generates a powerful magnetosphere and keeps the planet's mantle heated and molten, but Mars cooled long ago and has little magnetism.

Mars, without a magnetic field to deflect harmful cosmic rays, saw its atmosphere and water irradiated. It is commonly known that molecules bombarded by high energy rays change energy states and often ionize. Earth's thick and magnetically protected atmosphere stayed safe below a thin layer of ozone that absorbs incoming UV radiation , but the inner atmosphere of Mars would become the equivalent of one huge ozone layer, reaching the surface. Ozone is a dangerous chemical capable of reacting with other substances on the surface much like nail polish remover acts on its target.

Soon Mars was reduced to a collection of high energy ionized gases over a rock surface, and an intense greenhouse effect set it. Think about your breathing-while you manually breathe in and out, carefully controlling your respiratory process in order to avoid suffocating, air that has already been processed builds up and creates pressure for release. The oxygen rich air goes down easy, but the used air wants to come out. It's the same for a planet-the remaining gases on Mars heated and energized until they escaped the planet's gravitational pull. Over millions of years this process stripped Mars of all water and organic substances, leaving it the barren wasteland it is today.

To remedy this during a terraforming process, it would be necessary to either constantly produce a fresh supply of oxygen to replace that which is lost, or inject the core with enough metallic matter to reach critical mass and build up the same type of core found within the Earth. Some far-out proposals suggest engineering a collision between Mars and one of its moons, such as Phobos or Deimos, in order to increase mass and introduce energy into the core.

Re:How Exactly

[DylanQuixote]

Some far-out proposals suggest engineering a collision between Mars and one of its moons, such as Phobos or Deimos, in order to increase mass and introduce energy into the core.

Truely far out, as I believe phobos and deimos much less massive than mars.

if my calculations are right, 59 billion phoboses would equal about one mars.
. and it would take 286 billion deimoses to equal one mars. they're really insignificant moons.

Re:How Exactly

[niktemadur]

Here's another likely culprit for the lack of a magnetic field/shield: Earth has a HUGE satellite, the Moon, whereas Mars has two tiny, potato-shaped asteroidlets, Phobos and Deimos.

It is the interaction between Earth and Moon that creates the magnetic shield we have.

First off, we have tidal interaction, which gives Earth nice strong tugs, maintaining a molten state underneath us, thereby creating/enhancing a magnetic field. As to why the Moon is not molten inside, its' origins and composition will have something to do with it.

Secondly, the interplay between two large celestial bodies (Earth-Moon is technically a double planet, as is Pluto-Charon) expands and supercharges a magnetic field way beyond what it would be if a celestial body was alone. I read somewhere, sometime, that Earth-Moon has a magnetic field a hundred times stronger than it would be if Earth was a lone sphere.

Straightforward enough: no Moon, no shielding for Earth, for various reasons. Jupiter's moon Europa is cozily nestled inside its' host planet Jupiter, as well as Titan in Saturn; this is what another reason that makes them the most plausible life-sustaining places in our Solar System (other than Earth, of course).

I ignore the situation on Mercury and Venus, but whatever it is, solar winds and radiation, at those short distances, might cut through anything like Kevlar-busting bullets. On Mars, it will be like a regular bullet cutting through paper.

Re:How Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the moron who gave this a +5 Informative? This is nothing but a giant morass of misinformation and total nonsense, deserving - at best - a +1 Eco-parody.

As a result the Earth has a spinning metallic core that generates a powerful magnetosphere and keeps the planet's mantle heated and molten, but Mars cooled long ago and has little magnetism.

This is - at best - a guess. The truth is we don't really know why our magnetosphere is stronger than Mars', or even why it exists! We also have no reason to think Mars cooled earlier than the Earth.

Mars, without a magnetic field to deflect harmful cosmic rays, saw its atmosphere and water irradiated. It is commonly known that molecules bombarded by high energy rays change energy states and often ionize. Earth's thick and magnetically protected atmosphere stayed safe below a thin layer of ozone that absorbs incoming UV radiation , but the inner atmosphere of Mars would become the equivalent of one huge ozone layer, reaching the surface. Ozone is a dangerous chemical capable of reacting with other substances on the surface much like nail polish remover acts on its target.

UV has absolutely nothing to do with solar storms, and most certainly cannot be described as "high energy". Even more, there just is no way in the world that UV would cause ionization - that's plain impossible.

Ozone is nothing but oxygen, albeit in a different molecular form. It reacts with everything, just like oxygen does (ever heard of rust)?

Soon Mars was reduced to a collection of high energy ionized gases over a rock surface, and an intense greenhouse effect set it.

What is connection between ionised gases and the green-house effect?

Simple home experiment: touch a neon lamp with your hand. You'll discover it is cool.

Think about your breathing-while you manually breathe in and out, carefully controlling your respiratory process in order to avoid suffocating, air that has already been processed builds up and creates pressure for release. The oxygen rich air goes down easy, but the used air wants to come out.

You breath manually? That's an achievement - I usually breath orally.

Breathing is a para-sympathic reaction to the concentration of CO2; you could breath pure N2 gas just as easily, though you would die shortly due to lack of oxygen. However, the breathing process would be comfortable.

It's the same for a planet-the remaining gases on Mars heated and energized until they escaped the planet's gravitational pull. Over millions of years this process stripped Mars of all water and organic substances, leaving it the barren wasteland it is today.

Is a hot/"energised" (whatever that means) gas lighter than other kinds? Why should it escape a gravitational field?

To remedy this during a terraforming process, it would be necessary to either constantly produce a fresh supply of oxygen to replace that which is lost, or inject the core with enough metallic matter to reach critical mass and build up the same type of core found within the Earth. Some far-out proposals suggest engineering a collision between Mars and one of its moons, such as Phobos or Deimos, in order to increase mass and introduce energy into the core.

Unlike our Moon, the Mars satellites are of negligible mass when compared to the planet itself, and thus crashing them into the planet (even if we could) would not add significantly to its mass. How crashing something into a planet would "introduce energy into the core" is a total mystery. Where would you take enough metal (planet, or at least asteroid sized) is an open question, and how would you "inject" it into the core is an interesting exercise.

Re:How Exactly

[iwadasn]

There's more too it than that...

The primary difference is in the masses. The Earth is much more massive, so it has more gravity. That allows it to keep more gasses in its atmosphere. O2 for instance would easily get escape velocity on mars and leak out. So mars's atmosphere leaked out due to low gravity, this is the first step in the problem.

Secondly, the earth (by virtue of being heavier) has a lower surface area to volume ratio. So it loses heat slower with time. That is why our core is still molten. Mars probably had a molten core at one time, but it cooled off, and that was the end.

In addition, because the earth was heavier it got more heat from collisions (due to greater gravity) to begin with. So we not only keep heat more efficiently, we also started with more heat per unit of volume.

Also, much of the earth's heat is believed to be produced by the decay of radioactive elements, once again the lower surface are to volume (mass actually) ratio helps to keep that heat in, which keeps our core molten.

The liquid core that the earth still has (Venus has one too) produces the magnetic field. Our gravity is greater so most of the atmosphere can't escape, and thus we're relatively radiation hardened. In addition, the oxygen in the atmosphere (formed by primitive life) efficiently captures hydrogen (to form water) and thus keeps the hydrogen from leaking out. The solar winds deliver additional hydrogen (nicely funnelled into the poles) that replaces anything that was lost.

There really is a lot to it, but the basic factors are...

1) The earth is larger, so the core is still hot and we keep our atmosphere. Hot core generates magnetic shielding.

2) The earth has lots of oxygen (due to life), which traps hydrogen and keeps the surface cool because it is not a greenhouse gas. Oxygen also produces ozone that adds extra shielding. Mars is too light to keep oxygen even if we did generate it to begin with.

AAAHHHH!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Better train some more terranaughts fast!

Re:maybe...

[attemptedgoalie]

The article states that we have a Magnetosphere, Mars doesn't.

That is our protection. Over 3.5 million years, without that protection, it's POSSIBLE that the water was blown off of Mars.

Wrong link in article

[lingqi]

go here for cool animations.

The End?

[The_Real_Nire]

The END of the solar system?!!

We're doomed!!!!!

oh just kidding, slashdot has been boring lately and you know it.

Re:maybe...

[DShard]

Oddly enough a recent nova discussed this as a sidenote about magnetic pole reversals of the earth. The discussed that eventually the earths magnetic field would disappear as a result of the process, which would last 300 years. During this we would have a constant, global aurora.

They discussed to a good length that the failure of magnetosphere of mars had stripped it of its atmosphere and water.

Since I got rid of cable I have honestly rediscovered why Public broadcasting is great, as I would have never found this degree of depth on discovery channel.

Solar Storms Destroyed Mars?

[Illbay]

"Scientists now believe that it was solar storms that ripped water from Mars, causing it to be the dry barren wasteland it is today."

Nah. It was socialism.

Before the socialist revolution there, it was a verdant paradise, and the playground of the solar system's wealthy.

Now, it's Cuba without the palm trees.

The Martians are hoping and praying that the NASA landers are harbingers of the new "Yanqui" economy.

Kim Stanley Robinson got it an bit wrong

[bigsteve@dstc]

Remember the Green / Blue Mars novels by Kim Stanley Robinson where they create an atmosphere on Mars? Well it looks like it wouldn't be viable without also finding a way to generate an Earth-like magnetic field.

Re:Kim Stanley Robinson got it an bit wrong

[Graff]

Remember the Green / Blue Mars novels by Kim Stanley Robinson where they create an atmosphere on Mars? Well it looks like it wouldn't be viable without also finding a way to generate an Earth-like magnetic field.

Not necessarily true. Yes, eventually Mars will lose most of its terraformed atmosphere and it will return to the state that it is currently in but that could take millions of years. We can certainly generate a ton more atmosphere than Mars loses and we can do so for a good, long time.

Not only that but if we were really innovative we would redirect a few comets or similar objects into a close orbit around Mars, releasing them onto the planet in a planned manner and further bulking up the atmosphere. This may be a bit beyond our current technology but we should be able to do it fairly soon.

By the time we are ready to terraform Mars we will almost definitely be able to do so.

Re:Kim Stanley Robinson got it an bit wrong

[lingqi]

Erm, Venus has no magneto sphere either, you know.

That said, since it does sport a huge iron core maybe if we spun the planet the magnetic field would come along too. Though it would be interesting to see what effect would it have on the earth's magneto sphere (magnetic tidal forces?). It would suck if earth's magneto sphere disappeared because of it.

Though maybe we can send a team of crackpots to detonate some nukes in the core. Oh gosh that was a terrible movie. but hey! maybe we can do that for venus!

Re:Kim Stanley Robinson got it an bit wrong

[Surazal]

Erm, Venus has no magneto sphere either, you know.

Serves me for not looking up the specific facts.

Link for explaining Venus's lack of a magnetosphere (it's pretty self-explanatory):
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/p ersonnel/russell/pap ers/venus_mag/

The supposition by this article claims that Earth kept its magnetic bubble due to "stirring" of the core (most likely due to tidal forces from not having a tidal-locked rotation period, I would guess).

So, increasing the rotation would be just the key I would think to introducing a magetic field. Of course, someone here also said that a small planet colliding with that planet would be the trick to increasing its rotation. Since the entire planet would be converted to magma as a result of that collision, I think that would be the perfect solution to creating a good magnetoshpere (thanks to the trusty dynamo effect).

Re:Magnetic Field

[Commander Trollco]

Yes, the magnetic field does deflect a lot of solar radiation.
Warning: blatant oversimplification!

Much of the solar flux comes in the form of charged particles, such as Hydrogen ions and electrons. Electrically charged particles are deflected by magnetic fields. Thus, a major portion of the solar wind does not reach the surface of Earth. To find out more, here is a helpful link.

Soo..

[Anonymous Coward]

..if the solar storms blew away water from mars upper atmosphere during a long period of time, which led to the drying of mars oceans, the same (but maybe in a lesser extent) should have happend to earth.

Because of earths higher gravity, denser atmosphere and our magnetic field this effect might not at all have been that big, but over the billions of years it has probably made a noticeable decrease in earths oceans too?

If we take a look at Venus, a planet we believe had as much water as earth in the past, we find that it has no water either - and no magnetic field but it has about the same gravity as earth and a denser atmosphere => it is quite likely that a magnetic field is much more important for a planet to keep its water, than its atmosphere and/or gravity.

However, as I understand, during the period (several hundreds of years or more?) which the earths magnetic field changes polarity, which happends regularly, we have no magnetic "shield" and together with my statement that denser atmosphere and higher gravity than mars does not matter that much, earth should during this time also have lost some water in the same way as Mars/Venus?

So what am I shooting at here? Well I think it is an interesting question wether we (planet earth) had more water 5 billion years ago, or if it is largely unchanged? Maybe earth was totally covered in water? Maybe we will only have half as much, or no, water in 5 billion years? Or is earth in fact increasing its water-mass by sucking up comets? Are there any such data/measurements?

Maybe if we have such measurements from periods during which we had no magnetic field - we might be able to calculate the effects of solarwinds and thereby maybe evaluate this new Mars-theory plus maybe calculate wether earth might suffer the same destiny as Venus and Mars.

(I think it is quite sad that we are surrounded by all these planets that once was easily terraformable but now they are all "dead". ..and we are next) :(

Re:Soo..

[barawn]

..if the solar storms blew away water from mars upper atmosphere during a long period of time, which led to the drying of mars oceans, the same (but maybe in a lesser extent) should have happend to earth.


Mars has no magnetic field. Its core cooled off tremendously faster than Earth's, and so the magnetic field froze out.

Earth, being more massive, also has a much smaller scale height, so that liquid water vapor extends to much smaller heights. Combine those two and the water vapor loss rate for Earth is tremendously less.

Until the output of the Sun increases in a few hundred million years, the water cycle is stable. (Yes, a couple hundred million years - Earth will be out of the habitable zone *before* the Sun goes red giant).


(I think it is quite sad that we are surrounded by all these planets that once was easily terraformable but now they are all "dead". ..and we are next) :(

Well, yes - life requires energy, and the Sun is burning through it at an utterly incredible rate. Eventually it has to run out.

Of course, that's several hundred million years from now, and if we're still stuck on this planet by then, we deserve to go extinct.

If we really want a couple more, we could always move Venus out to Mars's orbit, and have Mars smash into it. Poof! Instant new Earth.

Not Solar Storms At All

[Nom du Keyboard]

They think it was solar storms. I think it was patents. The Martians kept granting more and more ridiculous software patents until someone was allowed to patent water. And that person then collected it all up and that was the end of Mars as they knew it.

Clearly

[tcd004]

we need to take out the Sun as soon as possible!

That menace!

mars solar storm movie

[infonick]

Were you disappointed by the movie not working? Two errors were in the link.

This is the working link,

And here's a link to the movie itself.

Re:Voyager?!

[QuantumJedi]

Yes we are still receiving stuff from the voyager craft I remember reading a paper about it rcently in Nature. A link to the abstract is here It may not be as pretty as the pictures we got from the outer planets but I find it amazing that such old technology can still help us do science despite the fact that it is so far away it warps your mind trying to think about it. I wonder how long the voyager craft will stay operational or what kind of computer hardware/software it used. I guess a google search could tell me but I don't have time for that now.

The water went into the ground..

[andersa]

There isn't concensus on where the water have gone, the only thing we know for sure is, there was a lot of water before, and there isn't now.

I work closely with the Mars scientists at Copenhagen University. They designed the magnets on the Mars Rovers. If you ask any one of those for their official oppinion on where the water went, most likely they will just say "erhhh?!", because really nobody has clue. Some calculations conclude that even with the weak magnetic field, the boiling off of water would not go fast enough for all the water to evaporate into space.

Most of the water may still be there, but hidden underground as permafrost.

Re:Voyager?!

[niktemadur]

Hell, yeah! I believe that Voyager is doing its' most important work RIGHT NOW. After the Neptune flyby, the planetary science teams packed up and left, and a new crew of solar and interstellar scientists took over the lab, to remain there until Voyager's batteries run out, in the year 2020.

As we speak, Voyager 1 is more than twice the distance from the Sun to Neptune, maybe even three times as much. Voyager 2 is lagging behind a bit. Whatever the exact distance, the Voyager Twins are alive, well, and broadcasting from the very edge of the Solar System.

First, a bit of definition: a Solar or Interstellar Wind is not really wind, but particles travelling through space at great speeds. Our own Solar Winds zoom away from the Sun at about a million mph; it is poetically referred to as a Supersonic wind.

Solar winds race outward like an expanding bubble. Interstellar winds bombard us from all directions. There is a high-turbulence zone where these winds clash head-on; very little penetrates either in or out. This zone is called the Heliopause, where Solar Winds slow down from Supersonic to a hundred thousand mph. During a Solar Maximum, when our winds push the hardest, the Heliopause expands in area. Conversely, during a Solar Minimum, the Heliopause deflates.

On August 1, 2002, Voyager 1 measured Solar Winds at a hundred thousand mph! However, eight months later, the winds went back up to Supersonic, and have remained that way. Voyager 2, lagging behind, has detected no change at any point in time.

What does this mean? Well, Voyager 1 left the direct influence of the Sun, then some months later the bubble expanded, and Voyager 1 is back under the influence.

This has been a source of controversy, since way too few interstellar particles were detected, according to what current theorists expected. But then again, we ARE in uncharted territory, aren't we?

Re:in other news...

[Paulrothrock]

Not exploring, LIBERATING!

Re:Voyager?!

[sexylicious]

In space the matter is spread out much more than here on earth, which means the speed of sound through the various gases (mostly hydrogen, helium nuclei, electrons, and protons), is different. Since the gases are all spread out, the mean free paths between gas particles is pretty big. That means that your speed of sound is going to be greater.

But there is another catch!

Because the gases in space have a sigificant amount of charged particles, there is also a coupling effect between the electromagnetic field and the speed of sound. You essentially have TWO speeds of sound: one from the gas molecules bumping into each other; and one from the plasmadynamic interactions between the gas particles causing magnetosonic waves which have their own wave speed. The magnetosonic waves can only happen in a gas that is at least partially ionized.

The heliopause is a prime example of a magnetosonic shock. It's theorized to be pretty much a standing shock wave (standing still from our point of view). The heliopause should also have a sonic shock from the clashing of different materials at different speeds (two gas flows coming at each other). One gas will force the other gas to slow down; which forces the slowed-down-gas to form a shock.



In space, the speed of sound is REALLY big. 100 km/s is not an uncommon speed of sound. The magnetosonic waves should travel at speeds between the speed of sound and the speed of light. Magnetosonic wave speeds vary on how many ions exist in the gas, and on how much electromagnetic energy is transported through the gas.