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Giant Ribbon Discovered At Edge of Solar System

beadwindow writes "NASA's IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft has made the first all-sky maps of the heliosphere and the results have taken researchers by surprise. The maps are bisected by a bright, winding ribbon of unknown origin: 'This is a shocking new result,' says IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute. 'We had no idea this ribbon existed — or what has created it. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised.' Another NASA scientist notes, '"This ribbon winds between the two Voyager spacecraft and was not observed by either of them.'"

3 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Long-delayed echoes by nacturation · · Score: 3, Informative

    Long delayed echoes (LDEs) are radio echoes which return to the sender several seconds after a radio transmission has occurred.

    Unless someone has discovered faster than light communications, probably not.

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  2. Re:Long-delayed echoes by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 3, Informative

    Could this be the cause of the Long-delayed echoes?

    No, LDEs are are due to radio signals being trapped in an ionospheric/magnetospheric ionization duct. These are one to two kilometer diameter "tubes" of of low electron density that are aligned with the earth's magnetic field lines and extend from the F-region of the ionosphere in one hemisphere to the F-region in the opposite hemisphere. Radio signals originating in one hemisphere travel along one of these ducts and then are reflected off the top side of the ionosphere in the other hemisphere. They then travel back along the duct to the place of origin, resulting in the long-delayed echo.

    There's a pretty good article (from which I lifted most of this information) on this phenomenon in the November 2009 issue of QST magazine.

    KJ6BSO

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  3. Re:Prediction by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Informative

    We can pretty much rule out the biblical Judeo god (christianity, islam and judaism) because theres a LOT of claims about reality that contradict science (7 day creation, 6000 years old, giant wierd flood, space made of water, etc).

    Actually, when you read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew most of those contradictions disappear. They mostly came about in translations by trying to reuse existing Greek (then English) words (like water) for different concepts in the original. Ever heard about Moses' horns? Same phenomenon: inappropriate translation.

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