Note that while higly plausable, this connection has not been established at the current time. If I were to speculate on such things though, I would say that it is a very VERY good bet.:o)
The energy of the particles involved here are not particularly impressive....from a particle physics research point of view anyway. They are VERY impressive in that no natural mechanism before now has been known (on earth) to produce particle energies this high though. They are speculating that the accelerated electrons involved here are in the ~30 MeV range which is a commonly available energy range easily attained by even small medical e- accelerators (the therac 20 accidents happened with a beam of 20MeV electrons for instance) and the range is not that far above common natural beta decay energies(perhaps an order of magnitude). If you want to get to scientifically interesting energy levels these days (for particle physics research) you have to be at least in the high GeV range and for cutting edge research (the large hadron collider etc.) you need to be in the TeV range (trillion electron volts. When they say "good enough for the theorists to really test their models" they're not talking about the standard model of particle physics, they're talking about the models of particle acceleration in thunderstorms, I suspect.
interesting. very cool to have the discoverer of the phenomenon here with us! congradulations and please stick around! I'm sure you can contribute valuable information to other science articles appearing here in the future:)
Since Uranus is tilted on its axis almost ninety degrees it is very likely that the same polar vortex mechanism is at work there (probably even bigger effect than on Saturn) too and we jest haven't seen it yet due to a lack of angular resolution from our ground telescopes. So yes, Uranus probably does have a big hot pole!
For those interested, there was a lovely article about HANEs (high alt. nuc. explosions) in a recent SciAm article last year. It seems its been ripped off and re-posted here by some or other anti-nuclear group (thanks!). The article had a decidedly ominous tone as it explained how detonating a HANE would flood the van allen belts (creating new ones too!!) with a vast amount of electrons which then would happily spiral around the field lines of the earth for months at a time. Kinda cool and not so dangerous in the 1950's, and a horrifying nightmare scenario of near complete destruction of all satellites in LEO and MEO if done today.
-A splendid shot of the hot plasma and charged particle debris from shot Dominic Starfish Prime (taken from a plane) at T+3 minutes after "bang time" as it follows the earth's field lines through the upper atmosphere.
A conspiratorial fearmongering post moderated UP on/.? I'm shocked! Sigh, if this were being done for evil government/military(oh no, be afraid!) purposes why would they publish in nature!!? Did you even look at who wrote the inanely titled "angels don't play this haarp"? If you did you would see that it was written by someone who thinks that: "The present state of technology will open the next millennium with incredible possibilities. with electronic telepathy, microclusters technology, computer to human communications, new breakthroughs in electromedicine (whatever TF that is..), the discovery of subtle energy in geometries, holographic sound projection and speed learning, English communication with U. S. Navy dolphins, new science directions for the future, and more!" and was also co-written by someone who wrote another book saying that if they weren't being held down by The Government(tm) and all those eeevil scientist, the kooks investigating "zero point energy", cold fusion, "free/space energy" and "water hammers"(??) would surely soon solve all the worlds energy problems! Riiight....
Haarp injects a miniscule fraction of the amount of energy already bombarding the earths atmosphere naturally (from the sun). Its effects are academic, in both the literal and figurative sense. If people are so incapable of removing their tin foil hats for even a microsecond in order to examine a topic rationally and skeptically they shouldn't bother posting at all. You contribute nothing of value to the conversation in doing so.
I believe the word you are looking for is breakEVEN. If you're going to put a term in giant capital bold letters, at least make sure it's the the right one! Also, ignition is the point where a fusion reaction is energetic enough to sustain itself through the heating induced by the deposited energy from the alpha particle product of the reaction alone. It is uncelar at this time weather it is necessary to attain the ignition regime in order to make a reactor economically feasible.
Amazing. (Randi is simply amazing, that man seems eternally (supernaturally??:-)) tireless in his relentless attacks on charlatanism) I don't think I will ever cease to be amazed at the truthfulness of the maxim- fools and thier money are soon parted.
"rather than a CRT which focuses all three of its guns on the same spot."
Yeah... all three of its guns each firing special blue, green or red colored electrons! not. A CRT forms pixels from tri-color sub-pixels just like any other display, it's just harder to exactly focus the super thin beam of electrons down to such small sizes so far away from the source and there's some "bleed over", blurring the image. LCD's don't suffer from this effect and fonts are sharper because of it. All clear type does is antialiase the fonts making them, IMHO, look crappier. I don't know why people like blurry fonts. The sharp contrast of an LCD makes it far easier to read.
""Directional receiver" and not needing pointing are mutually exclusive by definition."
I don't think so...Imagine a fixed simple small whip antenna that would stick out the side of the craft. As the probe spins the signal strength varies regularly (synodically) by knowing your spin rate and the time you can determine where the signal is coming from (roughly) by looking at when the signal strength is highest.
Yagi antennas are different from phased arrays. When I said phased array I mean computer controlled phased array. These weren't really available until the '70's-'80's.
"Plus, such an atmospheric desent probe cannot have directional antennas (other than maybe "not down"), reducing the bandwidth."
Right, but this is so frustrating!! It's what's placed constraints on data bandwidth since we've been sending probes to...well anywhere.
If we're ever to increase the science returns from these missions there must be a way around this somehow. Optical transmission is out of the question right away obviously because of the even higer limit on pointing accuracy and attenuation prblems associated with the atmosphere. But what about a phased array transmitter? The problem with using directional radio transmitters to increase the signal/noise ratio on a decending atmospheric probe is obvious - conventionally, you'd need to use a dish to concentrate the beam in a particualr diretion (just like cassini's high gain antenna) and you'd need to continually re-point this dish as you're falling and turning under the parachute. You would lose track of where to keep pointed after just a few seconds of this. But what if you had a transmitter on the orbiting reciever spacecraft that sent a pure tone to the falling probe and small a directional reciever (which did not need to be pointed) on the probe? It would be easy to determine at least roughly where the signal was coming from as you were moving and rotating and with a phased array transmitter you could continually re-point the radio beam in this direction instantly, without moving any physical antenna. Phased array techniques are fairly new, I wonder, has this ever been considered before?
Yes, I recall them saying that they will be able to recover all the doppler wind data using VLBI from antennas that were listening on earth. They had EIGHTEEN huge VLBA dishes listening at the same time, I think this is the most ever used at once and they said they will be able to recover data on wind velcities buffeting Huygens during descent with SUB-meter per second accuracy. That is just incredible if you ask me.
No, not because of him. It appears (though no one wants to say anything really substantiative) that someone forgot to send a command to cassini to turn on the reciever for one of the channels. ESA is accepting full responsibility though since it was them who were supposed to give the command to NASA to send up I think.
Slashdot Mirror
I contemplated posting this exact tidbit a few minutes after hitting submit on my previous post! :o)
Note that while higly plausable, this connection has not been established at the current time. If I were to speculate on such things though, I would say that it is a very VERY good bet. :o)
The energy of the particles involved here are not particularly impressive....from a particle physics research point of view anyway. They are VERY impressive in that no natural mechanism before now has been known (on earth) to produce particle energies this high though. They are speculating that the accelerated electrons involved here are in the ~30 MeV range which is a commonly available energy range easily attained by even small medical e- accelerators (the therac 20 accidents happened with a beam of 20MeV electrons for instance) and the range is not that far above common natural beta decay energies(perhaps an order of magnitude). If you want to get to scientifically interesting energy levels these days (for particle physics research) you have to be at least in the high GeV range and for cutting edge research (the large hadron collider etc.) you need to be in the TeV range (trillion electron volts. When they say "good enough for the theorists to really test their models" they're not talking about the standard model of particle physics, they're talking about the models of particle acceleration in thunderstorms, I suspect.
o mah gaaa! you're a horse?
Yes, I would also, in adittion, like to say "hi". :)
brilliant sig
interesting. very cool to have the discoverer of the phenomenon here with us! congradulations and please stick around! I'm sure you can contribute valuable information to other science articles appearing here in the future :)
Since Uranus is tilted on its axis almost ninety degrees it is very likely that the same polar vortex mechanism is at work there (probably even bigger effect than on Saturn) too and we jest haven't seen it yet due to a lack of angular resolution from our ground telescopes. So yes, Uranus probably does have a big hot pole!
I think he meant bouncing off of electrons... in the "radiative zone" doncha know...
hmmm let me guess which DM search you're with.....CDMS 2? BTW what do you think of the latest DAMA/NaI(Tl) "result"?
wow you're a gigantic moronic douchebag. thankfully not american though.
For those interested, there was a lovely article about HANEs (high alt. nuc. explosions) in a recent SciAm article last year. It seems its been ripped off and re-posted here by some or other anti-nuclear group (thanks!). The article had a decidedly ominous tone as it explained how detonating a HANE would flood the van allen belts (creating new ones too!!) with a vast amount of electrons which then would happily spiral around the field lines of the earth for months at a time. Kinda cool and not so dangerous in the 1950's, and a horrifying nightmare scenario of near complete destruction of all satellites in LEO and MEO if done today.
-A splendid shot of the hot plasma and charged particle debris from shot Dominic Starfish Prime (taken from a plane) at T+3 minutes after "bang time" as it follows the earth's field lines through the upper atmosphere.
A conspiratorial fearmongering post moderated UP on /.? I'm shocked! Sigh, if this were being done for evil government/military(oh no, be afraid!) purposes why would they publish in nature!!? Did you even look at who wrote the inanely titled "angels don't play this haarp"? If you did you would see that it was written by someone who thinks that: "The present state of technology will open the next millennium with incredible possibilities. with electronic telepathy, microclusters technology, computer to human communications, new breakthroughs in electromedicine (whatever TF that is..), the discovery of subtle energy in geometries, holographic sound projection and speed learning, English communication with U. S. Navy dolphins, new science directions for the future, and more!" and was also co-written by someone who wrote another book saying that if they weren't being held down by The Government(tm) and all those eeevil scientist, the kooks investigating "zero point energy", cold fusion, "free/space energy" and "water hammers"(??) would surely soon solve all the worlds energy problems! Riiight....
Haarp injects a miniscule fraction of the amount of energy already bombarding the earths atmosphere naturally (from the sun). Its effects are academic, in both the literal and figurative sense. If people are so incapable of removing their tin foil hats for even a microsecond in order to examine a topic rationally and skeptically they shouldn't bother posting at all. You contribute nothing of value to the conversation in doing so.
And queue the hordes of unbelieveably improbable scenario spinning creationist kooks...nnnnnnnow!
I believe the word you are looking for is breakEVEN. If you're going to put a term in giant capital bold letters, at least make sure it's the the right one! Also, ignition is the point where a fusion reaction is energetic enough to sustain itself through the heating induced by the deposited energy from the alpha particle product of the reaction alone. It is uncelar at this time weather it is necessary to attain the ignition regime in order to make a reactor economically feasible.
Amazing. (Randi is simply amazing, that man seems eternally (supernaturally?? :-)) tireless in his relentless attacks on charlatanism) I don't think I will ever cease to be amazed at the truthfulness of the maxim- fools and thier money are soon parted.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. Audiophiles are the stupidest people on earth.
"rather than a CRT which focuses all three of its guns on the same spot."
Yeah... all three of its guns each firing special blue, green or red colored electrons! not. A CRT forms pixels from tri-color sub-pixels just like any other display, it's just harder to exactly focus the super thin beam of electrons down to such small sizes so far away from the source and there's some "bleed over", blurring the image. LCD's don't suffer from this effect and fonts are sharper because of it. All clear type does is antialiase the fonts making them, IMHO, look crappier. I don't know why people like blurry fonts. The sharp contrast of an LCD makes it far easier to read.
The LASCO instument aboard SOHO saw a "halo event" but it looks a little off axis (to my untrained eye) so we may not get the full force of the CME.
it was carl sagan
""Directional receiver" and not needing pointing are mutually exclusive by definition."
I don't think so...Imagine a fixed simple small whip antenna that would stick out the side of the craft. As the probe spins the signal strength varies regularly (synodically) by knowing your spin rate and the time you can determine where the signal is coming from (roughly) by looking at when the signal strength is highest.
Yagi antennas are different from phased arrays. When I said phased array I mean computer controlled phased array. These weren't really available until the '70's-'80's.
"Plus, such an atmospheric desent probe cannot have directional antennas (other than maybe "not down"), reducing the bandwidth."
...well anywhere.
Right, but this is so frustrating!! It's what's placed constraints on data bandwidth since we've been sending probes to
If we're ever to increase the science returns from these missions there must be a way around this somehow. Optical transmission is out of the question right away obviously because of the even higer limit on pointing accuracy and attenuation prblems associated with the atmosphere. But what about a phased array transmitter? The problem with using directional radio transmitters to increase the signal/noise ratio on a decending atmospheric probe is obvious - conventionally, you'd need to use a dish to concentrate the beam in a particualr diretion (just like cassini's high gain antenna) and you'd need to continually re-point this dish as you're falling and turning under the parachute. You would lose track of where to keep pointed after just a few seconds of this. But what if you had a transmitter on the orbiting reciever spacecraft that sent a pure tone to the falling probe and small a directional reciever (which did not need to be pointed) on the probe? It would be easy to determine at least roughly where the signal was coming from as you were moving and rotating and with a phased array transmitter you could continually re-point the radio beam in this direction instantly, without moving any physical antenna. Phased array techniques are fairly new, I wonder, has this ever been considered before?
Yes, I recall them saying that they will be able to recover all the doppler wind data using VLBI from antennas that were listening on earth. They had EIGHTEEN huge VLBA dishes listening at the same time, I think this is the most ever used at once and they said they will be able to recover data on wind velcities buffeting Huygens during descent with SUB-meter per second accuracy. That is just incredible if you ask me.
No, not because of him. It appears (though no one wants to say anything really substantiative) that someone forgot to send a command to cassini to turn on the reciever for one of the channels. ESA is accepting full responsibility though since it was them who were supposed to give the command to NASA to send up I think.
we did this. not with a probe though. with a flyby of galileo. guess who's idea it was.....yep(3/4ths down).