The space above you is fizzing with activity as bubbles of superhot gas constantly grow and pop around Earth, scientists announced today.
Astronomers found the activity up where Earth’s magnetic field meets a constant stream of particles flowing out from the Sun.
The newfound bubbles are technically called density holes. In them, gas density is 10 times lower. The gas in the bubbles is 18,000,000 Fahrenheit (10,000,000 Celsius) instead of the 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the surrounding hot gas, which is known as plasma.
The bubbles were found in data collected by the European Space Agency’s Cluster mission, a flotilla of four spacecraft. Researchers first thought they had an instrument glitch when the spacecrafts passed through bubbles.
“Then I looked at the data from all four Cluster spacecraft. These anomalies were being observed simultaneously by all the spacecraft. That’s when I believed that they were real,” said George Parks, University of California, Berkeley.
The bubbles expand to about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) and probably last about 10 seconds before bursting and being replaced by the cooler, denser solar wind, Parks and his colleagues say.
It is not known for sure how the bubbles are created, but the researchers suspect it involves the solar wind colliding with the magnetic field, which forms a boundary called the bow shock. The phenomenon is similar to the wake formed by the front of a boat.
I think the whole planet is effervescing from global warming.
While space is commonly called a vacuum, in fact there is gas everywhere, albeit not as dense as the air you breathe.
That was worth the price of admission, just to be disabused of that misconception. Dust in the vacuum of space, sure. Maybe even dustmites and cathair. But gas in any quantity? Nope.
Global warming, though? Are you comparing space to, say, a hot tub after a few burritos?
Sorry, Max. You may be right about the hot tub. Not about gas molecules in space.
http://tinyurl.com/l7kyw
Well, even at only 15% of the visible matter in the galaxy, at least there’s SOME gas involved, even if its not breathable.
(The idea of suffocation just gives me the willies for some reason)
Heh-heh, heh-heh. He said, “willies”.
The bubbles are created by large gaseous creatures swinging from hyper-string to hyper-string who tend to fart between strings.
What we don’t know is so much more amazing than the sum total of all that we ( as a species) do know.
Soooo… Anyone still thinks that the lunar landing was not a hoax?