Slashdot Mirror
Voyager Clue Points To Origin of the Axis of Evil
KentuckyFC writes "Cosmologists have been scratching their heads over the discovery of a pattern imprinted on the cosmic microwave background, the radiation left over from the Big Bang. This pattern, the so-called Axis of Evil, just shouldn't be there. Now an independent researcher from Canada says the pattern may be caused by the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space where there is a sharp change in pressure, temperature and density of ions in space. Known as the termination shock, astronomers had thought this boundary was spherical. But last year, data from the Voyager spacecraft which have crossed the boundary, showed it was asymmetric. The new thinking is that the termination shock acts like a giant lens, refracting light that passes through it. Any distortion of the lens ought to show up as a kind of imprinted pattern on an otherwise random image. But the real eye-opener is that as the shape of the termination shock changes (as the Solar Wind varies, for example), so too should the pattern in the microwave background. And there is tentative evidence that this is happening too (abstract)."
It all sounds very interesting and important and technical, but what does it all mean? Dammit! What does it all mean, man?
until Voyager returns from the edge as Vyger and answers all our questions or are we in an alternate timeline now?
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
So does this mean torture's ok and waterboarding might prevent the heat death of the universe?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Tell that to the audiophiles.
Let's test that theory: start a rumor that Michael Vick is starting a website called "slashdog".
Table-ized A.I.