this kind of belongs into the other FLuff threads, but as the answer by Dr. LaViolette is so extensive I thought it would make sense to open a new one. It is well worth the time, for the people interested in this topic. Although he doesn`t see the Fluff as an impending disaster, he doesn`t rule out its possbile consequences for the Sun and Earth.

He answered this question in March 2012 and I haven`t seen it posted on here.

Question:


Though we may have already been inside what is known as the Local Interstellar Cloud for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, scientists have been discussing regional areas, aka “cloudlets”, of variable density that we may have entered into as recently as the 1990′s. For example, see this NASA story from Feb. 2002 or this NASA story from Jan 2003:

“Some of those cloudlets might be hundreds of times denser than the local fluff,” says Priscilla Frisch, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago who studies the local interstellar medium. “If we ran into one, it would compress the Sun’s magnetic field and allow more cosmic rays to penetrate the inner solar system, with unknown effects on climate and life.”

A collection of articles with brief summaries about this phenomenon may be found here: [link to www.susanrennison.com]

There seems to be a large overlap here with Dr. LaViolette’s theories about the galactic superwave and the chain-reaction effect it would have on the solar system, Sun, and Earth, with past events being recorded in the Earth’s polar ice core record. A few questions come to mind:

1. How likely is it that the solar system’s movement through these variable density clouds will affect the Sun and Earth in a way similar to how a superwave has done in the past? Do you have any general thoughts on the significance of the Local Interstellar Cloud and its cloudlets with respect to its effects on our solar system/Sun/Earth/human bodies/minds? Is this a real danger to be concerned with?

2. Would such an event inject extra-terrestrial dust sufficient to produce increased concentrationsof cosmic dust indicators similar to those you found in ice age polar ice core samples?

3. Is it fair to say that possibly some of the evidence for elevated cosmic ray activity found in ice age ice core samples could be evidence for this kind of “compression” of the Sun’s heliosphere/magnetic field/etc. by these cloudlets?




Answer

a) Regarding the first question about the incursion of this approaching interstellar cloudlet. First we must ask how close is it and when will it actually be coming into our solar system? In this regard, if you check carefully the news announcements made by astronomer Priscilla Frisch, she does not say that such a cloudlet has actually been detected, only that there is a high likelihood that cloudlets may be embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud (i.e., within the Local Fluff) which have gas densities hundreds of times higher than the Local Interstellar Cloud average. This Local Fluff is said to be 30 light years wide and travelling past us at 28 km per second. So at that rate we will be going through it for the next 300,000 years. If then such a cloudlet were as close as 1 to 2 light years away from us, at this rate it would take 10,000 to 20,000 years before it reached us. I would say that such an arrival date is a bit down the road and that there are more serious things to be concerned with before that time, such as the impending arrival of a galactic superwave which I expect a very great likelihood will occur in the next few centuries. Unfortunately, it is not possible to predict a superwave’s time of arrival through satellite observation since a superwave travels towards us at the speed of light. Hence when it has arrived, that is when we will see it.

In regard to getting a fix on any such cloudlet, as I understand it, our current satellite and spacecraft observations are not well enough refined to detect anything of this sort with any kind of certainty. The energized plasma ribbon discovered by IBEX which is positioned at the outer boundary of the heliopause is an entirely different phenomenon. In my opinion there is no relation of this to any so called impacting cloudlet. I believe the ribbon to be a stationary phenomenon associated with the heliopause shock region. The reason why it is so energetic is that our solar system was impacted by an intense volley of cosmic rays as recently as 11,000 to 16,000 years ago, with a very minor event possibly having impacted around 5300 years ago just prior to the emergence of Egyptian civilization.

Others do consider the possibility that there may be a connection between the ribbon and energization by the impacting interstellar wind. Dr. Frisch believes that this high energy band could be the first sign of any change brought about by an interstellar cloud entering the heliosphere. She says that the energetic neutral atoms in the IBEX Ribbon derive their energy from energetic ions in the solar wind and outermost regions of the heliosphere, and adjacent interstellar space. But we have no direct measurements of energetic ions beyond the heliopause. So all this is open to question.

However, suppose we assume for the moment that there is an impending threat from such a cloudlet incursion. Would the solar and climatic effects be like that of a superwave? Well we can do some calculations to find out. Given that the Local Fluff (LIC) has a density of ~0.1 hydrogen atoms/cm3. Above it was suggested that an approaching cloudlet inclusion could have a density hundreds of times greater than that in the Local Interstellar Cloud, hence a density of say around 20 to 50 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. In a recent personal communication with me, Dr. Frisch related that the gas density in a very tiny dust cloud could even reach as high as 1000 atoms/cc. If we take this extreme example, we calculate a cloud density of around 1.5 X 10-21 grams/cm3. An interstellar cloud incursion of this sort, I believe, would have a significant climatic effect and a significant solar effect. But the most dangerous phase would likely last for several years, rather than for centuries or millennia as is often the case for the effects from a superwave.


more at:

[link to starburstfound.org]