Tammy Bruce: The Solar System Is Dented

The Solar System Is Dented

Either the biggest shopping cart in the universe is out there causing havoc, or nature, specifically the magnetic field, is messing with the perfection of the solar system. How this could have happened without humans being at fault is beyond me. How will The Goracle find a way to blame us for this, too?

Or reasonable people just might conclude that nature has a mind of its own, and sometimes changes things dramatically, and causes major disturbances. Imagine--something really big and remarkable happening without Us being responsible, or even remotely involved. I know, the Narcissist's Nightmare. How can Al sleep at night?

Voyager 2 finds solar system's shape is 'dented'

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has found that our solar system is not round but is "dented" by the local interstellar magnetic field of deep space, space experts said on Monday.

The data was gathered by the craft on its 30-year journey into the edge of the solar system when it crossed into a sweeping region called the termination shock, they said.

It showed that the southern hemisphere of the solar system's heliosphere is being pushed in or "dented." [...] The termination shock is a turbulent area far beyond Pluto's orbit where the solar winds emanating from the sun are significantly slowed as they run up against the thin gas of interstellar space. Solar winds blow in all directions from our sun, and shape what was once thought to be a bubble around the solar system called the heliosphere.

This at least explains why that picture on the wall never stays balanced.

A note by Maynard

The two Voyager craft were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a planetary alignment that happens only every 176 years. This made it possible for Voyager 2 in particular to visit the four outer planets (Jupiter (1979), Saturn (1981), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989)) in an amazing "grand tour". Both craft are still in contact with Earth after 30 years, continuing on their endless voyage away from the Sun. They are now more than a hundred times farther from Earth than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Imagine the technology involved in exchanging communications with a 12-foot dish so impossibly far away that it takes light more than 14 hours to traverse the gap. It boggles the mind that we can even talk to these craft.

The Voyagers are powered by the heat of decaying plutonium. (Solar power is not practical for a craft that strays so far away that the Sun is barely more powerful than a remote star.) The power source, which initially provided more than 400 watts, is slowly winding down. These days it's fallen below 300 watts, and some of the instruments are being closed down due to lack of available power. It is projected that between 2012 and 2020, dwindling resources will make the Voyagers less and less able to gather data and communicate, until they finally fall out of touch.

The Voyagers each carried a Golden Record, meant to be interpreted by space aliens when they find it. Considering the vast emptiness of space, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this to happen. This is probably for the best, considering that the message is signed by then-president Jimmy Carter, and the aliens would presumably sense his weakness and immediately launch an invasion.

Posted by Tammy · December 10, 2007 09:31 PM · Permalink
Outer Space

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The question is, will it return one day as a real V-Ger?
:P

Posted by: Hadsil at December 12, 2007 12:37 AM

Hadsil, that movie started in fine form the tradition that the odd-numbered Star Treks completely suck.

As for aliens encountering our primitive weakness, I tend to think of the shock to The Race when they arrived in the middle of WWII expecting us to still be in chainmail.

Posted by: Dave J at December 12, 2007 06:03 PM

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