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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.
"SpuriousLogic points out a BBC story wich begins"
It's which
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?
The atmosphere is closer to earth, but we're living in the TWILIGHT ZONE.
We have a supposedly conservative President that borrowed a page from arch liberal Wilson and invaded two countries in the cause of spreading freedom, has essentially nationalized banking, and meanwhile his political opponent, supposedly arch liberal, goes to church every weekend, is happily married with a beautiful family, is a totally self reliant and self made man, and ran and won an election essentially based the argument that America's economic policy and foreign policy should be more pragmatic and in the interests of Americans...
don't believe me? Get thee to You Tube, and listen to Reagan 1980 and compare that to Obama 2008 victory speech. Both guys are making the same arguments - for a more effective government, for better standards of living for the middle class, for a practical foreign policy, in defense of freedom, and above all of faith in the American people.
The only reason Obama did not get 500 electoral votes was because he is black.
This is my sig.
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...
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
how perfect that this should be reported on December the 23 .. some say the number of Syncronicity ..
i always found this biblical passage of interest
1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.
1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;
and perfect if the ultimate cause of this turns out to be the 50 years of launching rockets into space ..
and/or
the long term implications of blowing huge holes in the atmosphere with 521 nuclear test blasts ..
and/or
the HAARP project .. who's true purpose and implications remain a GOVERNMENT secret .. but which are said to be the ..
american military's attempts to gain strategic advantage over it's perceived adversaries.. by the weaponization of
the weather and possibly even the ionosphere itself
http://worldvisionportal.org/wvpforum/viewtopic.php?t=296
http://pesn.com/2005/09/06/9600160_Weather_Modification/
http://www.infowars.com/video/clips/weather_wars/wm_bb.htm
The military says the HAARP system could:
* give the military a tool to replace the electromagnetic pulse effect of atmospheric thermonuclear devices (still considered a viable option through at least 1986);
* replace the huge Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) submarine communication system operating in Michigan and Wisconsin with a new and more compact technology;
* be used to replace the over-the-horizon radar system that was once planned for the current location of HAARP with a more flexible and accurate system;
* provide a way to wipe out communications over an extremely large area, while keeping the military's own communications systems working;
* provide a wide-area Earth-penetrating tomography which, if combined with the computing abilities of EMASS and Cray computers, would make it possible to verify many parts of nuclear nonproliferation and peace agreements;
* be a tool for geophysical probing to find oil, gas and mineral deposits over a large area; and
* be used to detect incoming low-level planes and cruise missiles, making other technologies obsolete
Buttered up to seem harmless HARRP (HIGH FREQUENCY ACTIVE AURORAL RESEARCH PROGRAM) is strongly suspected to be a scalar inferometer, which is able to use the earth and atmosphere as a conveyor of scalar waves to excite the energy in the atmosphere at any point on the planet.. subsequently these waves are able to effect weather patterns by changing the energy levels (density) of the atmospheric layers, also making it possible to create endothermic implosions, or exothermic explosions using something known as the woodpecker signal to target specific points on the globe.
high frequency scalar waves can also be adjusted to the frequency of 8hz. Transmitted, this frequency interacts with the natural vibrational frequency of the brain, and could in fact be used to tip emotional balance or calm a human down.. or even put them to sleep, by resonating at the brains sleeping frequency, or perhaps even making you more or less prone to violence.
First off, there's the basic nature of the project. It's scores of radio antenna pumping massive high-frequency directional broadcasts into the air for the purpose of heating the ionosphere. Yes, that's right â" it's blasting electromagnetic radiation into the sky to "microwave" the outer layer atmosphere. Starting to sound less innocuous?
Some people, purporting to be government employees with privileged information, have claimed that HAARP is actually some sort of massive destructor beam for a nefarious purpose.
HAARP
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 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??