Slashdot Mirror
Humans Accidentally Made a Space Cocoon For Ourselves Out of Radio Waves (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard article: Humans have accidentally created a protective bubble around Earth by using very low frequency (VLF) radio transmissions to contact submarines in the ocean. It sounds nuts, but according to recent research published in Space Science Reviews, underwater communication through VLF channels has an outer space dimension. This video explainer, released by NASA on Wednesday, visualizes how radio waves wafting into space interact with the particles surrounding Earth, and influence their motion. Satellites in certain high-altitude orbits, such as NASA's particle-watching Van Allen Probes, have observed these VLF ripples creating an 'impenetrable boundary,' a phrase coined by study co-author Dan Baker, director of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. This doesn't mean impenetrable to spacecraft or asteroids, per se, but rather to potentially harmful particle showers created by turbulent space weather.
So there is this "space blanket", but...
This doesn't mean impenetrable to spacecraft or asteroids, per se
Does it or does it not inrefear with spacecraft or asteroids? If not than what does it interfear with? Anything? Space whales? Potentially?
but rather to potentially harmful particle showers created by turbulent space weather.
Well, does it or does it not? From the very minimal Vice "article":
Next, scientists are figuring out whether the VLF bubble can be used to purify the near-Earth environment from charged particles, which would make humanity a little safer. Well done, random radio-induced space cocoon.
OK, so this is all just wild speculation, and there is no real evidence to suggest this "space blanket" interfears with anything. But for sure if it doeas, we will find out because certinly that can be "weaponized".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
...I got nothin' else.
Checks source... Vice.com.. Promoters of such (((science))) as "white people suck" and "math is racist" and "there are precisely 83 genders, and also it is a spectrum and also you can have no gender" and "borders are racist"
Up until now, the idea of shields such as those shown in sci-fi flicks has been a pipe dream. But this makes me wonder if we have stumbled upon a way to make this a reality. Perhaps if we can emit VLF radiation at very high frequency and boost the power by several orders of magnitude we could create an effective energy barrier. As the summary says, it may not protect against kinetic weapons but honestly there are other ways to protect against those (or avoid them entirely). Protection against particle and beam based weapons is more than half the battle. I would think a simple Faraday cage could protect the crew members from harmful effects as well. One unanswered question would be how much power this would require to sustain over an entire battle and what advances in reactors we need to make to be effective.
If you can get people there without the proteins in their brain being denatured by radiation, maybe you could keep them that way for extended periods without their brains turning into scrambled eggs.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
>> 'impenetrable boundary,' a phrase coined by study co-author Dan Baker
Or anyone who's forgotten their wife's birthday. Amirite?
Then why do we still get Bit Flips with large HDD"s??????????
Bitrot!
Human electro-magnetic pollution has long made bitch-Gaias ebola/rabies/smallpox-laden earth a more humane environs . From Neolith forest-burning to star-powered solar concentrators watts to complain? Start another coal-mine today or krank that gas-powered generator; keep shoveling on biomass! Ectopic-pregnancy-pimping-Gaia self mutilates in protest haha! If simultaneous you can fuck-to-death a snowflake blonde, encourage a lib.com suicide or drive a tree-hugging eco-roach into the mud ... better for the human ansatz!
Seriously, if this can lower possible harm to a ground crew, that could be useful. Perhaps directed to cover a small area.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you can get people there without the proteins in their brain being denatured by radiation, maybe you could keep them that way for extended periods without their brains turning into scrambled eggs.
It's too late for that. Just look what 20 years of FOX "News" has done to brains of millions...
"Now Witness the Firepower of this fully Armed and Operational Earth!"
Is this how they lost contact with their alien overlords?
Not sure how operational, though.
Maybe a first step in terraforming Mars. And does this "shield" keep particles in as well as out? If it works both ways it could help prevent atmospheric depletion and allow bulking up the atmosphere on celestial bodies that have lost their magnetic fields. Lake Armstrong here we come! And maybe even generation ships crossing interstellar distances.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Sounds like we need this to surround the White House. If it is that impenetrable, maybe it can be used to seal that piece of shit off from the rest of the world before he does any more damage.
"Stop producing those radio waves! The use of power and emission of harmful waste gasses from electric production into the air causes global warming! Stop immediately and all life will benefit!"
So, basically (and unwittingly), we're using the Earths' own natural magnetic field as a carrier wave, and our VLF emissions are modulating it? Cool.
Makes me wonder if, now knowing this, we could engineer the effect to, say, mitigate the effects of solar flares on our various technologies?
So in a dramatic turn of events, it seems human activity is PROTECTING the planet
Basically, we've figured out how to make a rudimentary deflector shield.
Solar storm approaching! Earth shields to maximum power! *hits big red button on VLF machine*
So, there's hope for a human colony on Mars.
Protection, shmection. If it causes even a slight change in the Earth's climate, it'll have to be eliminated.
Is a cocoon like a niniggra?
(This sounds like an episode of The X-Files.)
So the real answer to the Fermi Paradox is... Before a coronal mass ejection hits the planet, civilization has to have developed... submarines. Well, *that's* counter-intuitive.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
And could those particles have an effect upon cloud formation ? Sure thy could. And do clouds have an effect upon how much sunlight does or doesn't get reflected back into space ? Yes. And could that have an effect upon global warming ? Yes. And did global warming become a problem just about the time we started communicating with nuclear submarines ? ( yes actually ) Hmmm, just wondering.
The word "science" should be removed from anything on this site.
That would be the most logical conclusion.
Everyone know it is our Lord and Benevolent protector President Trump that did this.
This effect has been known, and studied, for many years. One of the early discoverers, and researchers into the effect, was Robert Helliwell of Stanford. ELF generated by lightning, which is happening around the world all the time, was triggering this cleaning-out of the earth's inner radiation belt long before the first submarine ever existed. I'm afraid this is old news in a typical NASA PR flack package. I suspect there are people waiting in the wings ready to propose setting up large ELF transmitters along the equatorward edge of the auroral zone so as to clean out the radiation belts on a routine basis. I believe this sort of thing was even proposed (may still be on the books) as a way to dump out an artificial radiation belt generated by a high altitude nuclear explosion (like the Starfish experiment back in 1962) should some Bad Guys decide to do that as part of an attack on satellite assets.
Considering the major impact that the solar wind has on high level ozone concentrations and cloud formation that we're only beginning to understand, one might wonder how much of an impact this may be having on global temperature.
BTW, that linked video was pretty nearly worthless explaining anything.
-Styopa
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-...
Typical humans, always needing a safe space, grow up already
If this has beneficial effects, why wouldn't another species do this as well? Is there a way to check for this signature when looking at exo-planets?
Oops - for ELF in my post read VLF. My irritation with NASA fuzzed my brain. For those interested in the physics/math behind all this, take a look at "Particle Diffusion in the Radiation Belts" by Michael Schulz and Lou Lanzerrotti (published in 1974 - NOT news).
From the Motherboard article:
Next, scientists are figuring out whether the VLF bubble can be used to purify the near-Earth environment from charged particles, which would make humanity a little safer.
If so, then could we use VLF ripples to protect us from EMPs - either from the sun, or from a nuclear weapon?
It figures that the real smoking gun for man-caused climate destruction would be instruments of war; sumbarine communications systems in this case. A device designed with the sole purpose of killing people en masse.
This isn't an accident. Word in the "Alien Visitor" camp says that this 'bubble' inhibits the operation of certain aspects of alien spacecraft. Furthermore, the spraying of barium mixture into our atmosphere as contrails enhances the effect. The technique was given to us by a competing alien race. Any takers?
Since our magnetic shield is almost toast right now, this really is GOOD news. I, for one. don't care to be bombarded with high energy protons, and right now the sun has been loosing them on us at a furious pace...