Recalculating the Distance to Interstellar Space. Could we cause a breach in the helio sphere and cause doomsday? Or could a comet like object?

We watch our sun erupt violently with flares, CMEs and all sorts of other behaviours and yet compared to this cloud, which is 30 light years (estimate) across, the sun is pretty small... The sun is more denser, but the cloud is way bigger. If the density of the interstellar plasma is great enough, I think there could be a possibility of a violent explosion or some effect on our solar system.

And there is nothing we could do about it, the probe is so far away, ultimate doom.

Voyager I weighs less than a typical car.


It's also about as big as a tank.

[link to upload.wikimedia.org]

It ain't gonna do shit to this "interstellar cloud"

The heliosphere PROTECTS us from the interstellar medium, the interstellar matter is varied, depending on the characteristics of the cloud(s) our solar system is in. Since like our magnetosphere on Earth, it blocks a lot of the things that would not be good for life in large doses and cause complex physical reactions and interactions of the radiation/energy.

Magnetic fields still have us mystified, we are still trying to figure out why the sun erupts violently. There is always the possibility that our meddling in the heliosphere, no matter how small could cause unforeseen effects on the solar system. IBEX found a ribbon, unpredicted and unexpected, just outside the heliosphere, at the boundary. What if this ribbon was the result of our probes somehow changing the interaction of magnetic fields and particles in that small area, which in turn creates a cascade effect which triggers some sort of violent "explosion"/reaction.

2 stars, really? At least the idea is more original than "Oh no, this comet will cause the end of the world".

I guess some people are upset that this would mean any life that evolves to be able to travel in space using technology will eventually destroy themselves and that travel between the stars is impossible using matter.

You know what will happen to that chunk of alloy at 6000°C?

A moth to a flame my friend.

Being original isn't the same thing as being intelligent. Not to say that those saying a comet will cause the end of the world are intelligent, mind you.

..it could be like the needle popping a balloon..depending how fragile the helisphere is. Always wondered the same about earth and our primitive process of getting into space in crude fuel burning rockets!

It's not dense enough for it to melt or boil, the cloud is 30 LY across but it's not as dense as a sun. However, it is a plasma just like the sun and contains magnetic fields as complex, if not more, as our sun. Scientists think that the violent explosions we know as flares and CMEs are caused by a process called magnetic reconnection. When the fields mix it causes an explosion of the plasma... We all know what that looks like on the sun. But what happens when the plasma outside the heliosphere, which separates the magnetic fields, begins to mix with the solar wind plasma??

Magnetic reconnection is a physical process in highly conducting plasmas in which the magnetic topology is rearranged and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, thermal energy, and particle acceleration.

The qualitative description of the reconnection process is such that magnetic field lines from different magnetic domains are spliced to one another, changing their patterns of connectivity with respect to the sources. It is a violation of an approximate conservation law in plasma physics, and can concentrate mechanical or magnetic energy in both space and time. Solar flares, the largest explosions in the solar system, may involve the reconnection of large systems of magnetic flux on the Sun, releasing, in minutes, energy that has been stored in the magnetic field over a period of hours to days. Magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetosphere is one of the mechanisms responsible for the aurora, and it is important to the science of controlled nuclear fusion because it is one mechanism preventing magnetic confinement of the fusion fuel.

The Earth's magnetosphere

New measurements from the Cluster mission for the first time now can determine unambiguously the scale sizes of magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetosphere, both on the dayside magnetopause and in the magnetotail. Cluster is a four-spacecraft mission, with the four spacecraft in a tetrahedron arrangement, to separate spatial from temporal changes as the suite flies through space. Cluster has now also unambiguously discovered 'reverse reconnection' near the polar cusps. 'Dayside reconnection' allows interconnection of the Earth's magnetic field with that of the Sun (the Interplanetary Magnetic Field), allowing particle and energy entry into the Earth's vicinity. Tail reconnection allows release of energy stored in the Earth's magnetic tail, injecting particles deep into the magnetosphere, causing auroral substorms. 'Reverse reconnection' is reconnection of Earth's tail magnetic fields with northward Interplanetary Magnetic Fields, causing sunward convection in the Earth's ionosphere. The upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission will improve on Cluster results by having a tighter constellation of spacecraft, allowing finer spatial measurements and finer time detail. In this way the behavior of the electrical currents in the electron diffusion region will be better understood.

On 26 February 2008, THEMIS probes were able to determine, for the first time, the triggering event for the onset of magnetospheric substorms.[6] Two of the five probes, positioned approximately one third the distance to the Moon, measured events suggesting a magnetic reconnection event 96 seconds prior to Auroral intensification.[7] Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles, who is the principal investigator for the THEMIS mission, claimed, "Our data show clearly and for the first time that magnetic reconnection is the trigger.".[8]
[link to en.wikipedia.org]


The magnetic fields of interstellar space already influence our ionosphere and atmosphere, which with no doubt is also a factor in climate on Earth and our solar system environment. A release of energy caused by magnetic reconnection.

The heliosphere also has a "tail". Just like we have geomagnetic storms on Earth, why is it not possible that our solar system also experiences similar events caused by interstellar matter like the clouds and the winds. Aurora and noctilucent clouds are most likely the effects of the same sources. If aurora are caused by energy stored for days or weeks, what would the energy stored for years have on the heliosphere and solar system? If NASA wants us to be so worried about a possible plasma explosion caused by a magnetic reconnection from the sun, imagine what would happen if a flare or CME caused by the instabilities at the edge of our solar system. It would be like a tsunami, may not as fast and violent as an eruption from the sun but it would be extremely powerful and much, much more massive. Most likely not visible to our eyes because we can't see CMEs or flares from the sun either.

Yet no one has disproved or debated anything I have said. Why is it not intelligent or feasible?

Last Edited by Plasmare on 07/26/2011 08:04 AM

Maybe those people need to actually post what is so impossible about this actually happening and being the case. Does anything actually ever leave our solar system that is physical matter? Or enter? I have not found any evidence of this. How do we know how such objects may impact on the magnetic fields at the edge of the solar system.

Maybe a comet/asteroid with a certain composition and characteristics caused a breach and such an event as it entered the solar system, if such objects do exist, they could be the cause of catastrophic events as they allow the magnetic fields to reconnect and violently explode.

Maybe Voyage won't have any effect, but how do we know it can't? How do we know anything that interferes with the fields won't cause an eruption or a reaction? We use magnetic fields to fire particles together in the LHC at speeds close to the speed of light, magnetic fields can accelerate matter (cosmic rays) to 99% the speed of light and any breach of the heliosphere would result in a higher cosmic ray flux. And every time there has been an ELE in the past, there was also an increased cosmic ray flux. Coincidence?

Voyager will be the first man made object in our current age to pass through the sun's protective field and into interstellar space. I'm speculating if such an object could cause a breach with the heliosphere and create some kind of magnetic reconnection event between the plasma in interstellar space and the plasma we know as the solar wind.

I doubt there are any objects in orbit around the sun outside of the field, so such breaches would be extremely rare.

Six 2 star votes.. really? And not a single coward would even comment as to why?

The limits of the solar system can be defined in many
ways. The farthest object orbiting the Sun could be one. The
farthest planet could be another. We define this limit as the
boundary between the Sun’s solar wind and the interstellar
medium, the material between the stars in our galaxy. The
interstellar medium is not uniform, but is composed of many
clouds with different densities, temperatures, magnetic field
strengths and directions, and flow speeds and directions.
The Sun is now embedded in a region of the interstellar me-
dium called the local interstellar cloud. The solar wind flows
outward from the Sun and creates a bubble in the interstel-
lar medium.

The solar wind pushes into the local interstellar cloud
until it too weak to push any farther, then turns and moves
downstream in the direction of the local interstellar cloud
flow. The plasmas in these two winds cannot mix, since they
are confined to magnetic field lines and magnetic fields can-
not move through one another.

The Voyager spacecraft periodically detect radio emis-
sion from the boundaries of our solar system. This radio
source is the most powerful in the solar system with an
emitted power of over 1013 W
www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/out/kbbook/Chapters/Richardson_KB​limits.pdf

So normally these plasma cannot mix and there is no reconnection. But if like on the sun, something causes the fields to reconnect it would also result in an explosion of matter and energy. The matter would not be very dense but considering the sheer scale of it all, the amount would still be massive.

Last Edited by Plasmare on 07/26/2011 08:29 AM

Because it is not an actual bubble.

If you throw a rock at the sun....it will fuck it up and we will all die.

The shape is not important, I was merely using it figuratively. We are still closed off for the most part from interstellar space and the matter and energies (radiation, cosmic rays). Only neutral matter normally gets in and has no effect on the solar wind.

How many sun diving comets have resulted in CMEs and eruptions? I've seen dozens at least myself on SOHO, LASCO and STEREO.

Lol, perfect analogy OP. Think the rock will make the sun exlode?

One such example. What do you say to that?

Last Edited by Plasmare on 07/26/2011 08:35 AM

Now we have a Star Trek movie plot and "V---GER"?

Not true my friend, not true. Throw a rock BIG enough and your desired outcome will occur.

A University of Kansas research team is using NCSA's Abe to explore the energy of cosmic rays and a possible link to massive prehistoric extinction events.

Fossils and cosmic rays appear to have nothing in common. But some researchers think one may be linked to the other.

Radiation from cosmic rays—those energetic particles from outer space that penetrate Earth's atmosphere—may have caused some of Earth's major extinction events. Adrian Melott, a professor at the University of Kansas, is doing work with high energy cosmic rays to investigate that possibility. In the meantime, though, he and graduate student Dimitra Atri are using NCSA's Abe supercomputer to study what happens to the atmosphere from a flux of high-energy cosmic rays.
[link to www.ncsa.illinois.edu]

These magnetic reconnection events would cause a burst of high energy cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, much higher levels than we currently have. Like a particle accelerator. We know that our own magnetosphere acts like a particle collider, that the sun accelerates particles from within its magnetic field (flares) and so does the heliosphere.

There is much information out there which shows the correlation between cosmic ray flux intensity, extinction events and evolutionary bursts.

A fleet of NASA and European Space Agency space-weather probes observed an immense jet of electrically charged particles in the solar wind between the Sun and Earth. The jet, at least 200 times as wide as the Earth, was powered by clashing magnetic fields in a process called “magnetic reconnection”.

These jets are the result of natural particle accelerators dwarfing anything built on Earth. Scientists build miles-long particle accelerators on Earth to smash atoms together in an effort to understand the fundamental laws of physics.

Similar reconnection-powered jets occur in Earth’s magnetic shield, producing effects that can disable orbiting spacecraft and cause severe magnetic storms on our planet, sometimes disrupting power stations.

The newly discovered interplanetary jets are far larger than those occurring within Earth’s magnetic shield. The new observation is the first direct measurement indicating magnetic reconnection can happen on immense scales.

Understanding magnetic reconnection is fundamental to comprehending explosive phenomena throughout the Universe, such as solar flares (billion-megaton explosions in the Sun’s atmosphere), gamma-ray bursts (intense bursts of radiation from exotic stars), and laboratory nuclear fusion. Just as a rubber band can suddenly snap when twisted too far, magnetic reconnection is a natural process by which the energy in a stressed magnetic field is suddenly released when it changes shape, accelerating particles (ions and electrons).
[link to www.universetoday.com]

How stupid is it that no one is able to dispute anything in this thread in any kind of debate and yet people keep voting 1 star. No reasons given. Afraid of the truth?

BTW SickScent, you used my own research which I presented here under another username for your own blog and that "ebook" for your own belief. You may remember me as Xenus. Now it seems you are so set in your belief of what is happening and going on, that you refuse to accept being wrong and that there may be other explanations. Everything I have stated here is backed with links and some information which shows what I am talking about.

The interaction of the cloud surrounding us is more complex than you can imagine. And it all eventually cascades down to our local environment.

1 Star for you, Asshole.

Long period comets are those thought to originate outside the solar system. But not outside the heliosphere. So all known comets are within the magnetic field of the solar system, at least as far as I can tell.

This is the second new breakthrough from the 34-year-old Voyager craft in as many weeks. Last week, we learned the spacecraft were flying through a foamy froth of magnetic bubbles, a bizarre phenomenon that results from the criss-crossing and rejoining of magnetic field lines at the edges of the solar system. The bubbles impact the rate at which cosmic rays can penetrate the sun’s protective sheath, but it’s not quite clear whether they’re helpful (trapping cosmic rays) or harmful (helping rays hitch a ride toward the sun, and us).
[link to www.popsci.com]

Looks like they have already detected magnetic reconnection events which accelerate interstellar matter inside the solar system.

Last Edited by Plasmare on 07/26/2011 09:12 AM

Here’s a bit of background: The heliosphere is a bubble of charged particles encasing the entire solar system, protecting it from incoming galactic cosmic rays and the interstellar wind. The interstellar wind consists of speeding particles left over from supernovae millions of years ago, and its pressure helps dictate the size of the heliosphere. The sun’s magnetic field also has an impact.

Its magnetic field spins in opposite directions at its north and south poles, creating a twisty sheet where the two spins meet. Billions of miles away from the sun, where the Voyagers are now, the sheet starts to bunch up on itself. New data and new models show that in this twisty region, magnetic field lines criss-cross and reconnect — this is the same process that underlies solar flares, by the way — and the fields reorganize themselves, popping out into magnetic bubbles 100 million miles across.
[link to www.popsci.com]

I have to point out that the same thing NASA warned everyone about occurring on the sun, mainly flares which can disrupt our power grids and electronic devices, can occur on a scale MUCH larger, MUCH more massive from the edge of our solar system... Just think about that alone.