Astronomers unravel solar system's strange energy 'ribbon' Astroboffins reckon they may have solved the mystery of the vast ribbon at the edge of our Solar System after three years of puzzling over it. Retention region shown around our heliosphere The mysterious band of energy and particles, first discovered by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) at the edge of the system …
To summerise the earth has a magnetic field around it, probably in rough proportion to the size of the planet.
The sun also has an magnetic field around it, probably in rough proportion to the size of the constant, ongoing fusion explosion that is to bright too look at ten light minutes away.
Am I missing something or is this a bit uh, obvious? It's not like nobody has heard of EMP, and can't figure out that a constant fusion explosion would give a roughly constant EMF up until you have a solar flare at which point you would get a pulse over the usual background level.
I dont think you quite understood the story Peter.
Just outside of the Solar System (beyond the point where the Solar Wind stops) we have a "ribbon" where energetic particles collect. This hasnt been properly explained before. What this thesis does is attempt to explain the phenomenon by saying that this is caused by the particles being trapped by the distortion in the magentic field of the intestellar medium caused by the solar system passing through it. Its a very interetsing theory.
Your suggestion above, fails to acocunt for this ribbon (i.e. that its only a thin slice - hence the name "ribbon") and only describes what happens at the Heliopause.
Nah, not the ribbon from Star Trek Generations. Instead its like the energy barrier from TOS where the crewman gets zapped during an unsuccessful attempt to transition the barrier and then develops god-like powers that inevitably and lethally go to his head and Kirk has to try to maroon him on an old mining colony. This of course results in an end-of-episode showdown where Kirk's shirt (as usual) gets ripped.
I want world peace, and a bikini model girlfriend, and a margarita on the rocks, and a pony.....
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