Slashdot Mirror
Voyager 1 May Be Caught Inside an Interstellar Flux Transfer Event
KentuckyFC writes "Last month, NASA declared that Earth's most distant probe had finally left the Solar System. But the announcement may now turn out to be premature. It was prompted by a dramatic increase in the density of plasma in the region of space the spacecraft is now in. However, there has been no change in the local magnetic field, which is what astrophysicists would expect if Voyager had entered interstellar space. Instead, space scientists think the probe may be caught inside a magnetic portal known as an interstellar flux transfer event. This occurs when the magnetic fields from two different objects briefly become connected through a tube-like magnetic structure. This process happens between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field about every eight minutes, so similar events are expected between the Sun's field and the interstellar field. This magnetic tube would allow particles in from outside the Solar System, increasing the density of plasma, while maintaining the same magnetic field. If so, Voyager 1 hasn't yet left the Solar System after all."
http://xkcd.com/1189/
I knew it.
It sounds like they have a problem with their flux capacitor.
Raise your hand if you fell for it this time.
dem jokers dun no shit bout nothin
Does this mean we have to go through another 'Voyager has now left the solar system' again?
The only need to accelerate to 88 miles per hour (141.6 km/h) to escape.
It's simple. Time to whip out the Tachyon beam, remodulate the shield frequency and it's on its way again! Just what are they thinking..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Holy shit, that could cause a resonance cascade! We should reverse the polarity of the neutron flow* immediately!
*
Just reverse the polarity, and all should be well.
Shit always worked on Star Trek...
Voyager 1 is not on a truck. It's in a series of tubes.
Now the real question is 88 mph in relation to what? :)
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flux!
That was the only bit of technobabble that Jon Pertwee would memorize, because is has meter. :)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I thought the NASA PR machine was turned off due to the Government shutdown.
I thought that it was stopped for the government shutdown?
Serious question, are projects like Voyager, the Mars Rovers and all that still being actively monitored, or are they just being left to fend for themselves during the shutdown?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
I hope that Voyager finished to leave the solar system by the time it reaches Andromeda.
See, they didn't vote the budget, and shutdown the government, and not the voyager 1 probe can't leave the solar system !
It's a conspiracy !!!
Uhhh, ... I think we've all been insulted. But I'm honestly not sure how.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
I think this is the part of Star Trek: The Motion Picture that we never knew...
Boy, this is a real page turner. I mean, each chapter is different. In chapter 17, we were leaving the Solar System. Then, in a twist no one saw coming, chapter 18 reveals that we are still in the Solar System, just hiding behind JLo's butt. I can't wait for next installment. I mean it. Exclamation marks and the number one mixed together, randomly.
I got to give it to them, it's a nice title.
'cause NASA said so!
I can't find any information on exactly who that is, but considering the importance of some projects I imagine those other 3% are there for a reason.
0 mph
rewriting history since 2109
Right now, there is a space alien laughing its ass off while it pulls voyager back into our solar system with a magnetic tractor beam.
HUR HUR HUR! EARTHLINGS FUNNY!!!!
They think reversing the connectors on Voyager's sensors is a big joke.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I am endlessly entertained watching the Slashdot community discuss magnetic fields without any mention of the electrical currents which tend to be their cause down here on Earth.
Why would that be relevant? You can have strong magnetic fields in the presence of microscopic electric currents such as permanent magnets. And they're discussing this in the context of plasma, both from the Sun and from the interstellar environment. I understand there is some current in the Solar Wind, but one can easily explain magnetic fields on interstellar scales without requiring similar scale electrical fields or currents.
Honestly, I'm more fascinated by this. What effects does this have on the Earth's magnetic field?
... I still cared about the status of Voyager 1. Perhaps it still hasn't left the nest, probably all set up in the basement playing GTA V.
Personally, I am delighted at the name of this phenomenon, whoever made up that phrase was clearly watching too much science fiction that week, or more likely not enough. "Interstellar flux transfer event" ... can you not see that in a future SF script? "Captain, we are caught in an interstellar flux transfer event, if we don't break free we will [go back in time | be transferred to a remote part of the universe | be transferred to another universe | nothing]"
Bitter and proud of it.
Scotty: Captain! We're caught in an interstellar flux transfer event!"
Kirk: Is that worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis?
Can we launch a faster probe to catch up to and pass by Voyager? One with up to date instrumentation. Would that tell us anything?
We witnessed a space-sponge spontaneously move more than six feet!
Khaaaaaaan!
Oh, wait.
Table-ized A.I.
"Flux Transfer Event"? Yeah right. Caused by a failing Flux Capacitor, no doubt.
Table-ized A.I.
The creator has not answered!
Can the slashdot guys put together some sort of scheduled job to post a "Voyager has left the solar system" every few days? Might save the editors a few minutes posting the article. Don't forget to include a number of AC's posting the "Obligatory XKCD" link
It can't go any further 'cause the government shutdown.
We're all going to find out there's some still-unexplained phenomenon where every object outside the solar system is actually much closer than it appears to us do to this flux event that distorts everything. We are told by the world's brightest scientists that everything is goddamn far away. Voyager 1 is going to go out and prove that all wrong. We used to think the Earth is flat.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Who knew? I mean besides Ted Stevens of course.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Eleeeeeectriiic Uuuuuuuuniveeerrrse!
trolling /. since 1952
The claim that Voyager 1 has left the Solar System is incorrect. Voyager 1 was thought to have entered the interstellar medium, but it may be another 30,000 years before it crosses out of the Oort Cloud and finally leaves the Solar System.
"Caught" would imply that it can't exit the area or phenomenon. In fact it seems to be traveling through the phenomenon. It would be really interesting if its vector chaged, and I thought that was what the headline meant.
Bruce Perens.
In relation to what?
So, it seems Voyager is still on the "magnetic highway" after all. I seem to recall during the discussion of the "magnetic highway" that some scientists were waiting for a change in the magnetic field before they claimed to have left the solar system. Somehow that got ignored when the plasma density data came out.
1.21 Jiggawatts!!
The obvious answer is that is in relation to itself. It must attain a quantum speed of moving faster than itself.
This is what happens when you let a woman be Captain.
The magnetic fields involved in such things do involve macroscopic currents, not like fields created in permanent magnets. You can find all sorts of discussion of current sheets and how the magnetic fields are carried by plasma through the solar system in actual science literature. The bigger issue to me with the electric universe freaks is not that they get some basic science wrong after a few missteps in reasoning and ignoring data, it is that they always start out by saying, "Scientists never talk about X," when it is something plastered all over the place in conferences and journals.
They officially dont know.
The magnetic fields involved in such things do involve macroscopic currents
That's an assertion without evidence. For example, solar system magnetic fields aren't generated by the weak current sheets that happen to be present, but rather by the intense and energetic processes happening in the star at the center.
how the magnetic fields are carried by plasma
Via microscopic currents in the plasma which pin the magnetic fields.
Uhm... magnetic field doesn't mean magnetic currents or a magnetic universe. Also, although electric current are considered the source of magnetic fields (as per Maxwell's Equations), that doesn't imply (like some might have you believe), that somehow there is a credible electric universe theory...
The most common explanation for the solar magnetic field is that it is result of a combination of plasma in motion in the sun and the solar wind. Both are charged and in motion and thus might be considered a source of a magnetic field.
However, a Flux-Transfer-Event is somewhat similar to what happens in a double-mini-roundabout when occasionally a driver will go around the perimeter rather than simply be restrained to one of the smaller roundabouts. During this event, the car "flux" density is transfered from one roundabout to the other.
The empirical law that states the cars go around clockwise (e.g., electrical current law) isn't totally important to understand this phenomena nor is the fact that in certain relativistic frames of reference, the magnetic field is always zero (if there aren't magnetic monopoles) and also isn't something that supports or invalidates the fact that gravity keeps the cars from flying off into space...
Just realign the flux capacitor, adjust the Heisenberg compensators, reverse the polarity, and whatever you do NEVER cross the streams and Voyager should be just fine. Really, it's that simple.
Best /. comment I have seen this year. Well done!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Such plasma is solidly in the MHD regime, where magnetic fields are all from macroscopic current densities, not microscopic currents. The local magnetic fields are essentially generated by the current sheets and other large scale induced current (not the huge currents from deep space EU nuts propose). If that were not true, if the magnetic fields were generated only by the star itself, the fields would propagate outward at the speed of light from the star. In order for the fields to takes days instead of minutes to go an AU, the induced currents need to be producing fields of comparable magnitude.
Such plasma is solidly in the MHD regime, where magnetic fields are all from macroscopic current densities, not microscopic currents.
Hmmm, glancing at the equations, I don't see that assertion. The local current density is proportional to the curl of the magnetic field. If the magnetic field doesn't change much spatially or just happens to have a low curl for other reasons at a given scale, then it doesn't have a strong current at that scale. So you can have a strong macroscopic magnetic field without a strong macroscopic current in an MHD regime.
An example would be a static MHD regime plasma with a strong external magnetic field going through it (this incidentally being crudely the model I'm thinking of with the region in the shape of a spherical shell, excluding a neighborhood of the Sun and the interstellar environment).
In the case of the solar wind, I gather the primary dynamic is a more or less spherically symmetric outflow of plasma from the Sun (at least till you get near the edge of the heliosphere). That flow, being near curlless, wouldn't contribute to the curl of any magnetic fields pinned to the plasma in question.
So I have to say that I still don't see the comparable macroscopic currents.
Having said all this, I must admit that I overstated my original claim. I should not have been as confident in it as I was.
Yes, a curl free region with no currents, would have a magnetic field determined by its boundary, i.e. externally. But that would be both boring and unrealistic. Any changes in the magnetic field from the sun would induce currents in the plasma, and those currents would not be symmetric. Intuitively, if magnetic field changes were to propagate outward on some Alfven timescale instead of speed of light, that is because the induced currents in the plasma are counteracting the original magnetic field component propagating at c, and instead creating a net field that looks like the original changes moving slower.
Current sheets provide a simple example of some of this, where you can have an infinite sheet of current, then the two half-spaces on either side will have a constant magnetic field that experiences a jump when crossing the current sheet. This comes up a lot in shocks in plasma physics, and the Parker spiral which is part of how magnetic fields propagate out from the Sun.
A spherically symmetric outflow is an odd case, and was an import thought experiment for Maxwell, when he added the displacement term to Ampere's law. If you had a symmetric outflow, either your currents are very small, or you are create a rather large change in charge on the central body and hence a large change in electric field, resulting in no magnetic field due to the displacement current term. Otherwise you end up with a contradiction in Ampere's law. Displacement currents usually are not relevant in MHD conditions though.