Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth 235
MaxwellEdison writes "Scientists have discovered evidence of magnetic portals connecting the Earth and the Sun every 8 minutes. 'Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through.'"
Well at least we have (Score:4, Interesting)
the main plot device for next summer's blockbuster movie (tentatively titled "Star Portal").
-T
PS. Porno directors are already casting for the X-rated adaptation, tentatively titled "Star Hole"
electric universe kooks (Score:1, Interesting)
Can anyone point me to some info on WHY the electric universe people are kooks?
Lately I find some of the EU theories easier to accept than "majick" dark matter, dark energy, and magnetic fields with no electric current.
"Magnetic reconnection" really?
Better hope other theoretical and imaginary lines don't start acting up!
Aurora Borealis? (Score:5, Interesting)
"the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth's equator and then roll over Earth's winter pole"
I wonder if that's why the aurora borealis seems to crawl across the sky. I seem to remember (from when I lived in the high north) that it happened in fairly regular intervals. The "every eight minuets" seems to ring true as the time between each pass of the light though I haven't been there in eight years so I might just be remembering it wrong.
Planets Aligned (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:8.32 light minutes (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we use this to make energy? (Score:1, Interesting)
I imagine this is a long shot. But, if these are magnetic. Could we in some conceivable fashion use them to make energy?
Re:Learn something new every day (Score:5, Interesting)
we, the people of the night side of earth, object to the hotheaded policies of the day side government. despite all of your anti-nighttime propaganda, your DST [wikipedia.org] ploy to temporally encroach on our borders is plain to see. thus you have broken the circadian treaty that has kept peace between our two nations. we will not stand for this diurnal threat to our coolheaded & peace-loving society.
we declare war on the heathen sun-worshipers to, once and for all, bring an end to their sidereal tyranny. the crepuscular revolution has begun!
Portals or a series of tubes? (Score:3, Interesting)
These portals I suspect are just a series of tubes.
The sun is just like a big truck that dumps particles into these tubes and it can be an enormous amount of material.
This message approved by the corrupt and out of touch Republicans for science
Re:The explanation is a lie (Score:4, Interesting)
Except portal wasn't developed by valve, it was a senior year project for digipen...
Not exactly. The precursor to Portal (Narbacular Drop) was developed by Digipen students. Valve subsequently hired said students to develop the game commercially using the Source engine, and Portal was born.
Use for planet detection? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly!
Could this be used to detect planets (which have a magnetic field)? The delay between subsequent magnetic portal anomalies should give approximate distance from central Sun to the planet.
And do other planets (with magnetic fields) exhibit this magnetic portal as well? Then the Sun should somehow contain a magnetic "signal" which is a superposition of all of those. With Fourier analysis we should be able to make out the components, thus finding out how many planets (with magnetic fields) there are and their distances from the central star.
And a bit more sci-fi idea: could we use this for communication purposes - make the Sun or the portal "ring" with our message? Kind of like lighting a big enough lamp to be seen from a further distance.
And something to think about: how do binary stars behave... Are they in resonance?
Re:(c) Headline too long. (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps writing it in 150pt instead of 200pt would allow them to add the extra words that make it actually accurate.
I don't know about you, but reading 10 words instead of 6 doesn't cause me to get a headache. Cue Slashdot joke about reading.
It does matter. I for one just visit /. occasionally, quickly browse down the page for headlines that seem interesting, tab them and close the mainpage. If the 20 headlines per page were 10 words each instead of 6 words each and all in smaller font, it would make it less attractive to browse through a few pages.
And as someone who works in internet marketing, I can be pretty confident when I tell you that making headlines half longer and in smaller fonts would significantly lower reader amounts on each individual article, believe it or not.