NASA Probe Discovers 'Alien' Matter From Beyond Our Solar System (4 types of alien atoms)

SPACE.com ^ | 1/31/12 | Denise Chow

[NormsRevenge]

NASA / GSFC:

Using the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), NASA has sampled the galactic wind that has traveled from outside our solar system. Four types of atoms were found to be different from what we have in our Solar System.

[cripplecreek]

One of those things I’ve pondered myself over the years. I’m assuming there are all kinds of exotic elements in our universe that are unknown in our neighborhood.

[Paladin2]

Flubber? Unobtainium?

[Wuli]

ping

[cripplecreek]

We’re overburdened with governmentium.

[NormsRevenge]

It’s blowin’ in the galactic wind, yaknow ..

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

Unobtainium?

Isn't that the stuff that can be canceled out by goshdarnitonium?

[ml/nj]

I’m assuming there are all kinds of exotic elements in our universe that are unknown in our neighborhood.

Actually, it's pretty unlikely that there are different elements, or even different compounds. These things generally exist because their energy state is lower than some other combination of the same particles.

It's sort of cute that NASA made a movie about this instead of publishing a paper

It's also cute that the folks who tell us where the heavier elements (I think from Lithium on up.) that we observe here on earth came from, say it was from stars that died a long, LONG, time ago. In other words, the conventional wisdom is that almost everything we observe had its origins outside our solar system.

ML/NJ

[Darteaus94025]

liberalIQium

[Jack Hydrazine]

I wonder how long it would take a satellite, with a plutonium generator and a leading-edge Hall Effect ion engine or VASIMIR engine, to travel to the boundary layer of the solar system where the solar wind ends and the galactic winds begin?

[Waverunner]

Perhaps Another source for Illudium Pu-36...

[Red Badger]

Don't touch it!..................

[hadaclueonce]

Budget time. Expect to see the ATF agents with a big pile of guns on a table soon.

[cripplecreek]

I believe Daedalus was to take about 50 years to reach Alpha Centauri with a VASIMIR drive at something like 12% light speed.

Seems like the last I read (a few weeks ago) that Voyager was something like 109 AU from the sun now and my likely faulty calculations put Alpha C at about 280,000 AU from here.

New Horizons is currently 23 AU from earth with another 10 AU to go before its Pluto flyby in 2015.

[cripplecreek]

Space is like real big.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Ya think???

But VASIMIR and ion engine technology is making it slightly smaller. All I want is a relatively quick way to get around the solar system.

Once VASIMIR is perfected we’ll be able to get to Mars in as little as 39 days.

[Moonman62]

NASA is still doing amazing things, just not in the manned program that was ruined by politicians.

[cripplecreek]

We've got to move manufacturing into space because bigger really is better in space but you can't get it off the ground. That's going to require the ability to launch at will and not once every few months.

Daedalus next to a Saturn V

[cripplecreek]

NASA should concentrate on the pathfinding/prospecting missions like Louis and Clark. We need to ditch the outer space treaty for industry to really be interested.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Let’s first invent a cheap way to get to LEO.