Earth Surrounded by Giant Fizzy Bubbles (SPACE.COM)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 20 June 2006
12:00 pm ET

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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.
***
more: http://space.com/scienceastronomy/060620_space_bubbles.html

[Kutjara]

1. 18 million degrees...

...yep, I'd definitely call that 'fizzy.'

So many incredible new things are being discovered about our universe every day that I really hope the morons of this world don't wipe us out before we put it all together. For me, the wonder of real discovery like this is worth a thousand libraries-full of tired dogma.

[tridim]

2. Solar wind colliding with the magnetic field creates that much energy?

If true, could we not harness that energy somehow?

Maybe it's coming from the lower (string theory) dimensions?

[NYC]

3. I'm living in champagne?

Cheap champagne, judging by the size of the bubbles, but that's okay.

Interesting article.

[lindisfarne]

4. 18 million degrees and the instruments don't melt within 10 seconds?

"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. "

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, this 'gas' would make a good vacuum in an Earth laboratory ...

so the amount of heat is not large (temperature is average thermal energy PER PARTICLE).

[lindisfarne]

6. Ahhh. Thank you for that info. My world is back to normal. n/t

[Beelzebud]

7. I wonder what type of an effect HAARP has on this?

I still say messing with the upper atmosphere, like they are doing with HAARP, should be held back until we have a better understanding of the upper atmosphere.

(HAARP is an antenna array in Alaska that they experiment on using the ionosphere as a "lens" to direct global communication without the use of satellites.)