Nahhh.
Easier explanation.
Dark trees.... You can't see them, but they make oxygen from the sunlight.
Hey, why not? Dark something seem to be the solution to every other theory that starts to get a bit strained these days! ;-)
The latest data from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) probe has found a curious disparity in the distribution of some of the key elements of our solar system, notably why there is so much oxygen in it. IBEX, launched in 2008 to study the composition of interstellar space, has been gathering data on the amount of …
No no, there is a much simpler explanation, the benign alien overlords when they engineered the solar system manufactured extra oxygen to make sure life got started.
After all the outer two planets, Uranus and Neptune, are in the ‘wrong place’, they exist in a in a region of space where the density of the solar nebula was too low to allow them to form. The outer gas giants must have been created by self-replicating von Neumann machines, or as those of us in the know prefer to call them, “The monoliths”, as they were between jobs after creating the extra oxygen, so to kill some time they made Uranus and Neptune before moving on to the next project. Jupiter is probably in the wrong place as well, it happened when the monoliths mixed up SI and imperial units of measurement.
Mines the one with a copy of Terry Pratchett’s Strata in the pocket.
Perhaps somewhere inside our solar system is a huge fusion reactor taking raw elements and fusing them into heavier atoms such as oxygen and spewing them out into the space inside our heliosphere. It would have to be pretty big and have a self-sustaining fusion reaction to affect the oxygen concentration like that. I wonder where the aliens would have put it?
It would be interesting to note if they identified the concentrations of particular isotopes. Since O16 is produced by the CNO-2 cycle inside our sun, it might be reasonable to assume that some escape the sun to pair up as a molecule and carry sufficient kinetic energy to reach orbit into the solar system before being reconsumed.
Perhaps if they could also identify non-neutral species as well and do measurements at different orbital radii we might find that gradients exist within the population as a function of distance. Such information may yield insight as to where the building blocks of life may naturally accumulate and what type of life is most likely to manifest itself in those locales.
Alien origins indeed.
That is my point exactly.
The fact that the heliosphere acts as a bubble around the solar system should allow a localized, and as you pointed out quite possibly in a gradient fashion decreasing with distance, concentration of oxygen to accumulate as it's being emitted from the sun.
With the particle counts the experiment reported, I don't think it's an unreasonable hypothesis.
Infact, I would also postulate that if the sun wasn't emitting trace amounts of oxygen into the heliosphere, then within the bubble, I would expect less amounts of free oxygen than in the interstellar medium due to the oxidation of other molecules within the heliosphere.
To actually study this, I would propose a spacecraft similar to IBEX, but nuclear powered and launched the same as New Horizons, on a trajectory headed straight for interstellar space. It also could be loaded with other instruments specifically designed to measure the termination shock and heliopause in greater detail than the Voyagers have been able to.
I find it extremely easy to believe that the solar system has moved far away from it's original birthplace, but I seriously doubt that the oxygen concentration within the heliosphere hasn't changed significantly in that time.
...is it possible the wind changed direction since the sun formed and created the heliosphere? Or maybe the gasses being blown by the wind have changed by time.
Yes, lets jump to the explanation that someone stuck a big hook in the sun and dragged it here. Didn't the timelords do it in Doctor Who many years ago?
The man is right! God created the earth in 7 days, the first 6 being spent on the earth, and the 7th being spend creating somewhere in the region of a billion stars in our galaxy, plus planets, gas giants, comets, moons and other assorted celestial bodies. He then went the extra mile by creating around FIVE HUNDRED BILLION galaxies, according to NASA's current expectation. Each presumably containing about a billion stars, with each of those with a stellar system including it's own planets. Given the number of stellar systems we are talking about, presumably he also created life in a few of these as well.
. . . It's strange how he did all of that in one day though, given he had to spend six days creating earth?
Not that I actually beleive in any religion, but it's fun to occasionally think rationally about it just to hold up how utterly absurd creationist accounts are.
Well, you've got to tool up for the job haven't you?
Then there's the time spent reading the instructions that'll have been badly translated from Swedish, and won't have any words, just those stupid little pictures.
And you can never find screw type 'H' when you need them. And those little fiddly packs of PVA you get in ketchup sachets...
Once you've done one though and got it sorted, you can knock the rest out in no time....
He created the world in six days, then rested for a day.
Then it was Monday again. And just like you and me, it was back to work, creating the rest of the universe. Probably took him several six-day weeks.
The bible is inerrant, but it doesn't include absolutely everything God ever did.
Ok, you got me there. How much time I spend studying scripture probably shows. That said, if we were to accept "god" needs to spend a week on each system and we also accept that the universe is 6 thousand years old (I think that's the Christian figure?) then he must have started working overtime at some point to account for the numbers of planets in every galaxy in the universe.
Just saying.
Obvious really, prototype build vs. mass production.......
So somewhere in the Universe there must be an enormous factory turning out suns, planets and such, staffed by angels.
Everything available in a variety of colours and finishes, although in the early aeons of mass production you could have any colour you wanted, as long as it was black. This explains Dark Matter.
That seems the more anomalous result to me. Why does this local interstellar gas differ from the rest of the galaxy (at least according to the diagram at the beginning).
Paris, 'cos well, one suspects her of having too little oxygen at infancy....
"""But, this time, let us pray keep those Telephone Sanitizers though....."""
If you look at it, our society has progressed to the point where we no longer share phone handsets! So we can ship out the Telephone Sanitizers' Union along with the rest.
Great, now I feel like a gin and tonic, and it's not even lunch time yet.
David McComas is also arguing that, until very recently, the atmosphere was 100% peas. "My wife was putting peas in water through a sieve. The concentration of peas in the sieve was 100%, but the peas-and-water solution contained barely 20% pea. I conclude the sieve must have just passed through a very pea-rich environment."
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Seriously, when the Voyager craft haven't even left the solar system proper yet what in the name of the wee man does anyone know about the composition of interstellar space? Complete nonsense. @cjp39 - bit of an odd analogue but I totally catch your drift and completely agree with you. This is a non story to get more funding.
*mutters* more oxygen than interstellar space....load of hogwash. And anyway! The universe is over 14 billion years old and, according to all the data, is rapidly expanding as well the fact that we orbit the galactic centre as well as other galaxies - of COURSE we're not where we were when the Earth was formed.