voyager probes enter foamy bubbles!
the Voyager probes appear to have entered a strange realm of frothy magnetic bubbles at the edge of our solar system.
These could be protecting us from cosmic rays, and other things in the outer universe.
Really interesting this.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/09jun_bigsurprise/
Not that I'm ashamed of it: but, to be honest, I was one of the people that thought it would be a "graceful" fold back in on itself like the Earth's own "Van Allen Radiation Belt."
It is not ground-breaking or even very important, but it's interesting to see that even the most logical conclusions based on existing evidence...can be wrong at times.
Originally posted by inimalist
interesting... If our solar system itself has some form of protection against interstellar radiation, etc, it makes the drake equation that much less likely to produce intelligent life...
Any equation which doesn´t take into account all the data and possibilities is faulty. If you consider how diverse life is on this planet alone, in what amazingly barren and hostile places life still carries on, then there is a good chance of life of some sort existing in some other place, planet, gas cloud or even a massive energy life form in the middle of the galaxy.
Originally posted by Bicnarok
Any equation which doesn´t take into account all the data and possibilities is faulty. If you consider how diverse life is on this planet alone, in what amazingly barren and hostile places life still carries on, then there is a good chance of life of some sort existing in some other place, planet, gas cloud or even a massive energy life form in the middle of the galaxy.
its interesting is all I'm saying. Drake originally claimed his equation said there should be 10s of thousands of intelligent species in our galaxy alone, so I'm not trying to say this makes other forms of life impossible or anything, more one of those "look at how little we know" things
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I haven't heard any claims that this barrier she be assumed to be rare.
fair enough, maybe I overstated my point
As I've stated before, I heavily modified Drake's equation to be more...not so ... bad? I called and asked for a copy of my Thesis but the teacher said he threw it away. It was a ton of work, too.
One of these days, I'm going to re-work it with the current stats. It will improve my "Modified Drake's Equation Estimate" from 3000+ to something much higher.
Originally posted by inimalistAll Stars should be able to replicate these bubbles I don't see how you came to the conclusion that they are rare or unique.
interesting... If our solar system itself has some form of protection against interstellar radiation, etc, it makes the drake equation that much less likely to produce intelligent life...
Originally posted by kgkg
So what did you mean by this?
I overstated a point about how many variables we don't even know about there are that might contribute to the probability of intelligent life forming in the universe.
While it is also possible that this foam is uniform around the universe, or only varies in ways that make life more probable, my gut reaction is to think it might be like an "atmosphere" of some type, if it is being suggested that it acts as some form of protection from solar rays, and that we probably fall into some "window of life" whatever, much like almost all other variables in the drake equation, iirc.
if not, meh /shrug, like I admitted, twice, maybe I overstated my skepticism
Here´s a video on the theme. It makes me wonder what is beyond the suns influence. And imagine what a massive influence the galactic center must have on the universe outside the galaxy itself, if it is a dense mass object like a black hole.
And what is actually in interstellar space, we only know of what we have arround us. It could consist of some really wierd stuff.