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Space Is Just a Little Bit Closer Than Expected
SpuriousLogic points out a BBC story which begins "The upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere are much lower than expected, a US Air Force satellite has found. Currently, the ionosphere — a layer of charged particles that envelopes the planet — is at an altitude of about
420km, some 200km lower than expected. The behaviour of the ionosphere is important because disturbances in its structure can upset satellite communications and radar."
skyisfalling tag has never been so accurate!
Thats a pretty wide margin of error.
Things in the Ionosphere can be closer then they appear.
It's amazing how we look out into space and note the minutest changes and this happens at our back door. I picture a guy looking through a huge telescope at a far flung constellation. Then, wishing to take notes, leaning back and gasping, "Now where's my pen!?"
...the current satellites may be working just by chance?
shouldn't we have already known this? this seems like really, really fundamental data.
Chicken Little, after many years of mockery, finally has the last laugh.
HF propagation is effected too...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This is significant in more than just military satellite operations. The global phone system, international trade, global e-mail, etc. Even radio communications can and will be affected (think shorter range 'skip'). Does anyone have an idea as to the 'why'? TFA is a little sketchy...
If this is an actual erosion of the ionosphere, we may be looking at a serious problem. Whereas a hole in the ozone only amounts to a net increase of UV radiation (not that that is any good for humans), a thinner ionosphere means more solar wind removing our planet's atmosphere. Enough erosion and we'll be more barren than Mother Theresa at a Gay Pride festival.
Has anyone noticed any large maid-like robotic entities in orbit? More importantly to our future, were there any winnebagos with wings nearby?
I blame global warming!
I'm suddenly almost halfway towards my goal of making it into space. Take THAT everyone else at the class reunion!
we were glad to hear the latest poll was finding US increasingly optimistic, as we were tiring of all this ambivalence. better days ahead.
Look, if you want to make car analogies, then just register the account already.
Virgin Galactic? Pay a butt-load to fly up to outer space?
It looks like outer space is coming down to us now.
Well that business plan is now Blagojevich'ed.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It's hard to use the term "outer space" in anything but jest when Virgin Galactic won't even take you into orbit, but rather will give you only a decent view and a few minutes of weightlessness.
How could we not know the distance to the ionosphere? Isn't it used all the time for its radio-reflecting properties?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Now we know why the Earth is warming. We've just got less atmosphere to hold all the heat.
WTF? We've been launching rockets for 50 years to probe the space around us and they're only figuring this out now?
Or has this changed from before?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wow, 420 just took on a whole new significance!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I've never seen a definition of "space" that was based on the altitude of the ionosphere before. I've never seen a claim that the ionosphere was at a certain altitude, rather than a range with upper and lower bounds before. Most articles I see give about a 500 to 600 km altitude range, such as http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/ionosphere_intro/
Still, that's the ionosphere, not "space", and it's subject to wide variations of many different periods. TFA fails to show whether the result is a permanent feature or simply the measurement they found. It can hardly be anything other than the latter because there have been many, many measurements of the ionosphere, starting with numerous sounding rockets during the International Geophysical Year, 1957-58. TFA fails to account for their one results being at odds with many others.
And by "space" they mean "outer space", ie. outside the earth's atmosphere. If they meant simply "space", it could be the simple Euclidian definition of 3 extent dimensions. As such, we all exist in "space".
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
An accurate model of the ionosphere is also important for GPS. GPS works by measuring the propagation delays of radio waves, which are affected by the Earth's atmosphere.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Are we sure that they measured the distance in KM - what if it was miles, or furlongs, or rods, or perches....? I understand that this type of mistake has happened in the recent past.
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
This reminds me of a party and a game of charades. To be perverse I decided to have my charade be "ionosphere" figuring I'd stump everybody and wouldn't be bugged anymore about playing.
Wouldn't you know it? Somebody guessed it in 15 seconds. Yeah, I hadn't counted on a radar systems engineer being at the party. :)
Even textbooks on this topic don't usually spell out the very simple dependence between atmospheric depth and surface temperature: when you warm the Earth, air molecules 'bounce' higher, so the atmosphere gets deeper. When you cool it, they bounce less high. The higher they fly, the slower they move, unintuitively termed 'adiabatic cooling'.
A small percentage of the highest bouncers can be reheated by the Sun near the top of their bounces, and I assume the reported lower ionosphere is more due to a decline in this factor than to any global cooling.
"... because disturbances in its structure can upset satellite communications and radar" ;-)
They say nothing about disturbance in the Force. IMHO a disturbance in the Force can cause much greater damage than some petty disturbance in the ionosphere
who moved it?
And with "just" they may be referring to the justice meaning. As in "Space's Justice is closer than expected". And "bit" might be about the binary unit, as in "it's a 1 closer or 0 closer.". Finally, the term "closer" could be about the baseball relief pitcher who closes the game.
So, for all we know, the title could perfectly mean:
"Euclidean's three extent dimensions are applying justice a little one or an equally little zero, relief pitcher who finishes the game, than expected"
The distance to the edge of an atmospheric layer varies by definition, season, orbit, solar radiation conditions, and probably a variety of other conditions. If the edge measured was at 220km instead of 420km, is there agreement on the definition (as a start)? 220 km converts to about 137 miles. 420km converts to about 261 miles. (sorry, I'm in the US, I think in non-metric units.) The US requirement for astronaut wings is 50 miles. Since none of the people in orbit since 1960 (except for moonshots) went higher than the upper number, where they all in orbit within the ionosphere, according to the claimed 'old' definition? Unlikely.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
Somehow this never screwed up NASA...I would think the distance you have to travel to clear earth's atmosphere would have been an important thing for space flight. Anyone want to shed some light on this? Is it just that when space is concerned 200km is pretty small?
I would have tagged it as !BeneathASteelSky...
(Off topic, but I'll bite) ...or maybe there are a lot of voters that realize that the man has not done anything of substance except run for successively higher offices. Now that he is President, everyone is waiting breathlessly to see if the man can actually do anything besides 'speak well'. Personally, I hope he does something amazing that transforms American society for the better. I'm just not holding my breath until he does.
TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS IS MUCH CLOSER..
"upset satellite communications" means YOUR communications means YOUR communications are intercepted BY the Air Force.
Wake up and smell the fascism !
Cordially,
Kilgore Trout
http://www.theresonanceproject.org/research.html#spinors
uh, space did just get a lot closer...
lol ;)
Didn't The Sharper Image used to sell one of those?
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
I agree and would mod you +1 insightful if I hadn't wanted to comment too (even though this whole thread is OT).
Essentially, Obama is like any other person who excels at a given task. He, like a professional athlete or superstar doctor, lawyer, or burgerflipper, is really good at what he does and people can sense it. What do coaches do with a freshman QB that outperforms the JV or Varsity player... they groom them and advance them as quickly as possible.
His inexperience is not a sign of weakness but a sign of just how good he is. I agree that he hasn't been vetted by the system, and hasn't really done anything of note but advance through the ranks... but look at the kid in your office who keeps getting promoted for simply doing the mundane work better than his peers; you don't need to make waves to prove yourself capable.
Finally, I think that the American people feel that his inexperience also means that his perspective is better. Most politicians spend years accomplishing next to nothing and over time they come to accept it as "just the way things are". Obama is still young and idealistic enough to think that he can make things happen (at least that's how people see him).
Do I think Obama is going to do anything particularly remarkable... no. Not any more than any other President could with a lot of popular support and a large majority in Congress. What Obama will do (I believe) is rally the people, and essentially wield the American people as a tool to push his adjenda... while making the people feel like they have power over their government.
I am a true Republican that voted Obama... for two reasons. I believe that the American people need to be reminded of THEIR power in government. And I believe that the Social Conservative party that pretends to be the Republican party has destroyed our two party system. Why can't I vote for a smaller government and states rights anymore?
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
I hear Mars might become a substitute for Earth in the future. That could really impact the value of your Earth and depreciate the assets in your non-diversified Earth portfolio.
Closer ionosphere results in increases of off-topic trolls.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
We've been hearing about larger and industrialized countries traveling to the moon for PR and morale purposes, yet there is no show of the smaller countries still on a sound currency able to send their own into space if greater than low-orbit. X-Prize is the under-regulated side of the oppressed class of citizens wanting to experiment. Many trade conventions have exhibitors that pronounce and detail capable craft and technology that achieves much of these needs life containment outside of this planet's atmosphere. Consider that NASA isn't their only push, that there are people that want to do try these abilities before the decade is out and their life passes by them. Flying cars are old technology that small and sparingly populated areas out in Nebraska to Utah have been using between the annoying United States port-cities that the FAA has spoiled in monopoly and ill function. North of the Mediteranean Sea, I can think of a few firms in Germany and Italy that have already independently sent some of their own into space under the help of military to keep the event private and unpublished from public television.
Recently and on a shoe-string budget, a group of 5 or 6 men were sent to the moon to prove that NASA employees aren't the only one's capable of hosting a visit. They even sang a song from their landing, and carried-out atmospheric experiments on primitive specimens; but I fear that India is about to send lines of its dancers in same fassion.
Why US'ians don't know outside their borders, none will ever know.
I wonder if this means we'll be able to add a C, B, or an A region to the model of the ionosphere.
Currently the model consists of the D, E and F layers, along with some sub layers (Es, F1 & F2)
that form and dissipate during the day and night cycles, and respond to solar activity and other ionizing events such as micrometors. D being the lowest (previously) known and F the highest.
The letters A, B, and C were left open in the event that additional layers were discovered below D.
Is it actual weightlessness, or just less apparent weight?
And if they can't make the necessary altitude, can they get away with just doing a negative-g loop instead?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
At the end of the day, despite disagreeing with Obama politically, I had to go with the guy because he's fricking Captain Kirk. Captain Kirk -talked- the Enterprise out of so many jams, and i figure that, with the country bankrupt, we need someone who can sell.
Salesmanship matters. I think people forget just how much a good sales pitch can take you. I mean, how many times over the last 8 years have we one time Bush supporters just cringed when he opened his mouth. A good President has to be able to sell and that Bush couldn't even sell oil and baseball in a state where oil and baseball are god should have been our warning sign.
Smooth talking can get you a lot. Sometimes, you just need a f--load of people to believe in your dumb idea, and it can work. America's always been sort of a giant ponzi scheme anyway, and if it takes a harvard lawyer with a black preachers speaking style to get the bucks rolling again, I'm onboard the Obama express. I damn near cried because of his "yes we can" election victory speech because he really did make me believe in the country, and I think a lot of other people did too, and sometimes, that's what matters really the most.
Hey, that was good enough for NASA for the first two Mercury flights, with Al Shepard and Gus Grissom.
From what I understand it doesn't even leave hearths atmosphere just reaches the edge then falls back down. Think of it as an amusement park ride that just goes a little higher.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Virgin galactic describes it as "Sub-orbital"
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Has it changed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karman_line
Slashdot = Sarcasm
"The upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere are much lower than expected"
than expected??