Team Discovers "Throttle" For Solar Wind

ScienceDaily is reporting that a team of scientists have discovered that Helium may act as a "throttle" for the solar wind. The team hopes that this insight will provide them a better look inside the dynamics of space weather. "Because helium nearly vanishes from the solar wind at its minimum speed, the researchers believe helium might somehow set the minimum speed. Helium is not accelerated efficiently by any process thought to be propelling the solar wind. Instead, it has to be dragged along by the hydrogen: Solar wind hydrogen atoms exert a small electric field that drags the helium out along with it, according to the team."

Curiously...

I wonder *how* one measures anything going that slow considering there isn't something *tangible* to watch and measure... I wish the article could have explained this as I am now lost wondering... Which is faster, a slug, three toed sloth, helium or plasma...

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260 km/s isn't very slow in my book.

What's really goofy is TFA says that "lack of helium is what makes it slow" where it really seems like "slow wind isn't enough to pull any helium with it" - I think they have their causal relationship backwards.

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I think they don't know what's causing what. But there is a minimum speed - below which you don't see solar wind. At this speed, the He concentration also drops to zero. So the two are linked, but from TFA, they don't have a clue as to how.

I think I go

The relevant quote...

"At the minimum speed--the speed where the solar wind is no longer able to drag out helium--the solar wind itself can't escape either," said Dr. Keith Ogilvie.

Anyone else

Anyone else feel like releasing a few million helium balloons right above Redmond, Washington, right about now? ;)

Re:Anyone else

Anyone else feel like releasing a few million helium balloons right above Redmond, Washington, right about now?

Only on slashdot would someone stretch that hard to turn an astrophysics summary into an MS bashing troll. I mean, it takes WORK to do it that cravenly. Whew! You must be tired.

long range satellites

Could this be used on long range satellites?

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Long range...satellite?

I think we might be having vocabulary issues.

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Long range as in ones that leave our system like Voyager vs ones that just float around earth.

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I'm not sure I'd consider something on a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit to be a "satellite".

Spacecraft? Absolutely.

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I'm not sure I'd consider something on a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit to be a "satellite".

Agreed. Elsewhere in the article in mentions the "Solar Wind Experiment" as being on the "Wind" *spacecraft*. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to consider this thing as being a satellite of the Sun, assuming it's not going faster than Sol's esc

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It's a common misconception that solar wind drives a solar sail. This is really incorrect - in fact, solar wind destroys solar sails.

The momentum of photons striking a solar sail is what makes the ship go.

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That's a fair question. Is it meaningful to talk about a "satellite" if the period is tremendously long?

Insert squishy linguistic notions here. : )

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As the guy said. Vocabulary issues. "Satellite" does not mean "thingy with antennas floating in space", you know.

Space weather

Alpha quadrant : Freezio!

Beta quadrant : Freezio!

Gamma quadrant : Freezio!

Delta quadrant : Freezio!

I don't buy it

Helium has no dipole moment and will be unaffected by an electric field.

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on a molecular level tho, there can be an induced dipole.

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it's a plasma. without electrons, it's a positive ion.

Re:I don't buy it

This is not neutral hydrogen therefore it is highly affected by the electric field. This plasma has come from the sun which is way to hot for molecules or neutral atoms for that matter. The article does make good sense.

Summing up the article

The link seems to go into detail that they don't really know the importants of the helium present in the solar winds. Only that the winds speeds are somehow determined by the amount of helium present in the solar winds. While the helium isn't the actual

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Ok, I think everyone is kinda missing what the question and answer are here...

The question is why in the name of the sweet baby Jeebus does the solar wind have a minimum speed of about 161 miles/sec. It sounds like, according to the article that the ammou

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2) why is there a relationship since nothing that promotes the solar wind is thought to have an effect on the air speed of an unladen plasma of helium?

Would that be African, or European, plasma?

Seriously, though, there was a passage in TFA that explains i

no one knows?

The team discovered that the abundance of helium increased as the solar wind speed increased, from near zero around the minimum speed to more than four helium atoms for every 100 hydrogen atoms at speeds greater than about 500 kilometers per second (310 miles/second).

helium is heavier than hydrogen snd it requires a higher voltage potential to leave the sun's gravity well- in the case of solar wind the concentration of helium is actually lower than in the sun its self [4% vs 25%] the hydrogen has a better chance of escaping and at higher energies helium levels increase.

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While you're probably right when you say that the cause of the slowing is that the alpha particle is four times heavier than the proton, you are very wrong to bring in voltages. The solar wind is blown out by the pressure gradient, electic potentials have

brake, throttle....

So, helium is the brake and hydrogen is the gas pedal. Who's driving?

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hopefully it's not linux [slashdot.org].

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Oh my God, bear is driving! How can that be?

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So, helium is the brake and hydrogen is the gas pedal.

and don't forget the seatbelts [newscientist.com] that are strong enough to hold in your black hole addendum: I realise how trollish that sounds, but check the link

Helium is a byproduct of wind speed, not catalyst

TFA is horribly written. Seems that the presence of helium is a result of high wind speed, not the cause.

Re:Helium is a byproduct of wind speed, not cataly

I have to agree with this sentiment. The article seems to have been targeted at a fifth grade reading level (or below) and was quite painful to read. It isn't Science Daily's fault, however, as it appears the article was not an "adaptation" but rather a bl [mit.edu]

Ok, so, in other words...

Fast wind blows shit around, slow wind not strong enough to do so. Did I miss anything? :|

A clarification

The Science Daily article gets stuff a bit wrong. The hydrogen mentioned is not hydrogen it's protons (hydrogen without the electron), which are accelareted by the Suns magnetic field. Helium, being a neutral atom, is much less affected by the magnetic fie

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The hydrogen mentioned is not hydrogen it's protons (hydrogen without the electron), which are accelareted by the Suns magnetic field.

True, but a bare proton rapidly latches onto any nearby atoms which have an electron cloud to form a very strong ionic bond, forming something like HeH+ (prefered) or H2H+ from the stuff likely to be readily available in the solar wind.

Here on Earth,

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The Science Daily article gets stuff a bit wrong.

It isn't directly their fault. This article is a reprint of the MIT press release [mit.edu]. Admittedly, it's just as embarrassingly pathetic. SD must be hard-pressed for stories to be reaching into the press release

The truth

I did my own study. I ran around breathing helium. I ended up forgetting where I was and falling over. My conclusion is that the wind is slower when it contains Helium because the hydrogen is breathing it, and therefore incapacitated by it.

Contextual Google Ads for this Post

What is up with google's contextual ads? This was the first one of the three I saw when I opened this. The creationists must really be getting desperate.

God's Design Curriculum
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Next thing you know they'll have online creationist universities where you can get your degree in just

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No silly... you can get your degree in 6 days!

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I can easily believe a creationist would read "6 days to get a degree" literally as "6 years" in practice, but then they'd could simply believe that the time felt like it was "six eons", and it would all work out exactly as God (or the Holy Noodly Appendag

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In the fine print it says see 2 Peter 3:8.

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Next thing you know they'll have online creationist universities where you can get your degree in just 10 weeks! Apply now!

Bob Jones University Online?

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after that they'll fasttrack it to 6 days, graduation is on the 7th.

Boring Weather

The problem with solar weather is that every day is the same, hot and sunny.

Eat your heart out

Johnny Fartpants.

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No doubt you'll appreciate this thought, Johnny Fartpants. Instead of trying to use helium to throttle solar wind, how about we put it to some really good use as a throttle for gastric wind. Could first experiment on those bovine fart factories, AKA cows

About the researcher...

By the way, the lead researcher happens to be one of the guys reappearing yearly on slashdot as the students who built a breeder reactor [slashdot.org] for the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt.