Mystery Emissions Spotted at Edge of Solar System

Live Science ^ | Oct 15, 2009 | Clara Moskowitz

[decimon]

In the murky boundary between our solar system and the rest of the galaxy, scientists have spotted a bright band of surprising high-energy emissions.

The results come from the first all-sky map created by NASA's new Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, which launched in October 2008. While orbiting Earth, IBEX monitors incoming neutral atoms that originate billions of miles away at the solar system's edge to learn about the interaction between the sun and the cold expanse of space.

"The IBEX results are truly remarkable, with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region," said David McComas, IBEX principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas. "We expected to see small, gradual spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some 10 billion miles away. However, IBEX is showing us a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky."

This ribbon of energy lies at the very edge of the solar system, where the bubble of charged particles streaming from the sun finally peters out. This bubble is called the heliosphere, and it encompasses the region of space dominated by the sun's influence.

[Lurker]

Gas from Uranus?

[Thunder90]

PING

[Dallas59]

SUV’s?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon.

---

· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

---

[mikrofon]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon.

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·

Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

[50sDad]

RAMA’s catalytic converter needs to be replaced...

[PIF]

Just stopping by to refuel and then it is outta this crazy place...

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

[decimon]

Well, of course ibex have noses.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Noses and horns too

[Dixie Yooper]

"Holy carbon footprint, Batman!"

[decimon]

Noses and horns too

Note the 'V' of the horns. It all fits.

[allmost]

"We're just now getting a handle on the interaction of the surrounding interstellar medium with the heliosphere, and that's providing us with the big picture,"

It's a relief to hear that kind of attitude.

[stevecmd]

The soul of Ted Kennedy blasted into bits.

[brytlea]

Oryx instead of Ibex, but they do have horns and noses and they start with a vowel...

[ForGod'sSake]

Their "models" and "theories" didn't predict anything like this yet their models and theories re "climate change" can't possibly be wrong??? I get it.

"[The ribbon is] aligned by and dominated by the external magnetic field," McComas said in a briefing Thursday. "That's a huge clue as to what's going on. But still we're missing some really fundamental aspect of the interaction - some fundamental physics is missing from our understanding."

Help me out here guys, am I not seeing more and more articles referencing magnetic/electrical influences on the workings of the universe? Shades of "V"??? Might they be well advised to visit the Thunderbolts site from time to time? I don't spend a lot of time on this stuff but it appears to me the folks there have compelling arguments explaining a lot of what's happened in the past and what we're seeing today.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

That was the galaxy’s boundary, not the Solar System’s.