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First Images of Solar System's Invisible Frontier
FiReaNGeL writes an unexpected side-effect from NASA's STEREO spacecraft has allowed scientists to see a much more well-defined picture of the boundary of our solar system. "The twin STEREO spacecraft were launched in 2006 into Earth's orbit about the sun to obtain stereo pictures of the sun's surface and to measure magnetic fields and ion fluxes associated with solar explosions. Between June and October 2007, however, the suprathermal electron sensor in the IMPACT (In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients) suite of instruments on board each STEREO spacecraft detected neutral atoms originating from the same spot in the sky: the shock front and the heliosheath beyond, where the sun plunges through the interstellar medium."
IMPACT (In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transient)
Dear God, an acronym inside another acronym! I think the space geeks have beat us computer geeks yet again.
Last chance for gas, 20,000,000,000 km. We have lotto tickets and cold beer!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Would that be like recordings of silence or the smell of nothing?
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
It, grasshopper, is the sound of one star clapping.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=puns
int main() { while(1) fork(); }
I wonder if they found any more plutoids out there... Poor Pluto!
"Ah, so *that's* what an invisible frontier looks like!"
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
...what does god need with a Twin Stereo Starship?
I'm sure it's possible, but pointless. Decades ago, astronomers mapped proper motion and showed that all the stars were streaming away from a single point in the constellation Hercules. Presumably, that's where we're headed.
Makes you think, doesn't it? Everyone is getting the hell out of there and we're headed straight for it. Someone ought to do something about this... :)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
of the universes invisible frontier ; )
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
TFA: The termination shock is the region of the heliosphere where the supersonic solar wind slows to subsonic speed as it merges with the interstellar medium.
Okay boys and girls. Quick, grab your calculator and calculate the speed of sound in space...
You have nebula and lots of (hundreds of billions?) stars
Ah yes, the approximation of the universe if Carl Sagan had been British.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I was expecting a picture that didn't look like something I drew today at work using MS Excel and autoshapes.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
[...]assuming that the average of these would be zero IF the Sun had no velocity except that required for its orbit
around Galactic center. The average isn't, so the Sun has an extra velocity component, which is just the negative of this average. It turns out to be around 16.5 km/sec diagonally inward and slightly upward from its rotation.
It must be funny getting lost in your neighborhood and asking you for directions.