There is a Terence McKenna quote from the early 80's where he says that basically everything we know about the (largescale) universe comes from radio telescope data, and all the bits from all the data ever recorded have roughly the same amount of energy as a piece of cigarette ash falling about two feet. And this is what our entire understanding of the cosmos is based on.
Not sure of the validity of the measure/comparison, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. One does have to wonder though, if it's so obvious now why this phenomenon is happening then why didn't they predict it before seeing the data? Especially if we see the same thing in solar flares. It seems like it's generally a good idea to bet on the laziness of the universe, but beyond that anyone who pretends they know what's going on is probably full of shit.
The talk in general is about his formative intellectual influences, and about why he finds psychedelic drugs to be intellectually interesting. He has another talk that's more about his views of physics, epistemology, and cosmology here: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=297
Perhaps my two all time favorite talks on any subject, albeit you need a high tolerance to ideas that are at times highly speculative. (And sometimes flat out wrong.)
your "if it's so obvious why didn't they predict it?" question is a result of the way that the article is written which, in turn, is a consequence of the dependency of nasa (and astronomy and space research in general) on public goodwill to motivate funding.
this isn't so exciting, and it isn't so shocking.
it's a standing joke in astronomy / astrophysics that magnetic fields are complicated and misunderstood. whenever something can't be explained it's attributed to tangled magnetic fields. so complexity in the magnetic field - this "foam" - would not be a great shock.
i have a phd in astronomy. one reason i left the field (apart from the small matter of being a pretty crappy astronomer) was that i felt it was a fraud. sure, it wastes much less money than the arms program and, yes, we do have non-stick pans now, but everything you see from the field is presented in a sexed-up, over-sold, exaggerated way to get more funding.
Interesting. All of a sudden a deep space radio telescope seems like a good scientific mission. It would be a fascinating discovery if we poked our noses out of the heliosheath just to discover that all of the missing mass in the universe was to be found in cosmic rays that never reach the inner solar system.
We have good reason to believe that the missing mass cannot be baryonic or fast moving massive particles. This comes from the abundance of elements, so it is indirect but is consistent with other findings.
Furthermore, those cosmic rays would radiate when decelerated. I think if there was substantial mass in cosmic rays, we would see this radiation (did not make a calculation though). Note that the estimate for the mass of dark matter is about ~5 times the normal matter.
It would be great if we would send one or two such probes out per year, in different directions. We could find so many interesting things. There are currently only two.
The Voyager probes where only able to escape the solar system because Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune where aligned, and they could use the slingshot effect to accelerate when passing by them. These planets will not be aligned in a similar way until the 22nd century [1][2].
This seems like a sort of analog to the way hurricanes sometimes spawn tornadoes. At the boundary where the relatively still external air/space meet the rapidly spinning air/magnetic field generator, you get some turbulent interactions.
I would love to see the equations or programs they're using to model this.
"The sun's magnetic field extends all the way to the edge of the solar system," explains Opher. "Because the sun spins, its magnetic field becomes twisted and wrinkled, a bit like a ballerina's skirt. Far, far away from the sun, where the Voyagers are now, the folds of the skirt bunch up."
That's just the setup. The point is a little later: "The crowded folds of the skirt reorganize themselves, sometimes explosively, into foamy magnetic bubbles."
This seems to be the problem with relying solely on the private sector space exploration. With shuttles there is opportunity for revenue, with revenue come investors, with investors we can make progress. However, where is the revenue opportunity from either of these probes? Without a body that can be truly altruistic about projects and the benefit they'll provide, certain projects may never have/or my never again, become a reality.
This kind of news makes me truly excited about the future. We have concrete knowledge about so little in this universe, the future is ripe with possibility if we can just show a little foresight.
Nobody is proposing relying solely on the private sector for space exploration. But we'll be far better off harnessing market forces to make space access cheap then letting NASA just do the minimum stuff it can do with the suddenly-cheap tools it has access to then we will ever be trying to make the unaccountable jobs-program government space program provide the access. That has demonstrably failed. How many more probes would we have if we cut NASA's budget in half but they could just buy rocket space instead of building and maintaining the Shuttle and ISS at umpty bumbkin billion dollars each?
Watching that video, I couldn't help but wonder what Sheldon Cooper would say. It's unfortunate that NASA needs to work towards this level of public appeal just to try and secure funding.
[+] [-] Alex3917|14 years ago|reply
Not sure of the validity of the measure/comparison, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. One does have to wonder though, if it's so obvious now why this phenomenon is happening then why didn't they predict it before seeing the data? Especially if we see the same thing in solar flares. It seems like it's generally a good idea to bet on the laziness of the universe, but beyond that anyone who pretends they know what's going on is probably full of shit.
edit: The Terence McKenna quote is from this talk about his life: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=1509
The talk in general is about his formative intellectual influences, and about why he finds psychedelic drugs to be intellectually interesting. He has another talk that's more about his views of physics, epistemology, and cosmology here: http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=297
Perhaps my two all time favorite talks on any subject, albeit you need a high tolerance to ideas that are at times highly speculative. (And sometimes flat out wrong.)
[+] [-] andrewcooke|14 years ago|reply
this isn't so exciting, and it isn't so shocking.
it's a standing joke in astronomy / astrophysics that magnetic fields are complicated and misunderstood. whenever something can't be explained it's attributed to tangled magnetic fields. so complexity in the magnetic field - this "foam" - would not be a great shock.
i have a phd in astronomy. one reason i left the field (apart from the small matter of being a pretty crappy astronomer) was that i felt it was a fraud. sure, it wastes much less money than the arms program and, yes, we do have non-stick pans now, but everything you see from the field is presented in a sexed-up, over-sold, exaggerated way to get more funding.
[+] [-] wil2k|14 years ago|reply
That man was such a great thinker and ponderer (not to mention his huge vocabulary!)
Even though I don't agree with him on every idea, boy, do I wish there were more extremely out of the box thinkers like him around. :)
[+] [-] noarchy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] demallien|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atakan_gurkan|14 years ago|reply
Furthermore, those cosmic rays would radiate when decelerated. I think if there was substantial mass in cosmic rays, we would see this radiation (did not make a calculation though). Note that the estimate for the mass of dark matter is about ~5 times the normal matter.
[+] [-] yaix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alphaBetaGamma|14 years ago|reply
The Voyager probes where only able to escape the solar system because Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune where aligned, and they could use the slingshot effect to accelerate when passing by them. These planets will not be aligned in a similar way until the 22nd century [1][2].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist#Limits_to_slings...
[+] [-] xyzzyb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ars|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sushumna|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotharbot|14 years ago|reply
I would love to see the equations or programs they're using to model this.
[+] [-] iwwr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanxiyn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] click170|14 years ago|reply
"The sun's magnetic field extends all the way to the edge of the solar system," explains Opher. "Because the sun spins, its magnetic field becomes twisted and wrinkled, a bit like a ballerina's skirt. Far, far away from the sun, where the Voyagers are now, the folds of the skirt bunch up."
[+] [-] rcthompson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrleinad|14 years ago|reply
Maybe I should have followed my science instincts and perform a career in physics instead of System's Engineering
[+] [-] orofino|14 years ago|reply
This kind of news makes me truly excited about the future. We have concrete knowledge about so little in this universe, the future is ripe with possibility if we can just show a little foresight.
[+] [-] jerf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shenglong|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alphadog|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gammarator|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] velutinous|14 years ago|reply
The discovery is huge, but I'm just wondering
[+] [-] yxhuvud|14 years ago|reply