Team Discovers "Throttle" For Solar Wind 65
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... (Score:4, Interesting)
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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 I got that right, anyway. If not, feel free to make fun of me.
The relevant quote... (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone else (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Anyone else (Score:4, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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I think we might be having vocabulary issues.
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Spacecraft? Absolutely.
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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 escape velocity...?
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The momentum of photons striking a solar sail is what makes the ship go.
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Insert squishy linguistic notions here. : )
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Space weather (Score:4, Funny)
Beta quadrant : Freezio!
Gamma quadrant : Freezio!
Delta quadrant : Freezio!
I don't buy it (Score:1, Interesting)
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Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Informative)
Summing up the article (Score:1)
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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 ammount of helium asomatotically approaches 0 as the speed slows to 161 miles/sec.
So the question becomes:
1) why must helium be present?
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
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Would that be African, or European, plasma?
Seriously, though, there was a passage in TFA that explains it. As I understahd it, solar wind has an escape velocity necessary to leave the sun; factored into this is the drag created by the He-H attraction (which I'm not too clear on, since they are both positive ions). Since He is heavier, its escape velocity i
no one knows? (Score:4, Informative)
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 nothing to do with it. And the wind itself is quasi-neutral, meaning that the number of positive and negative charges in a non-infinitesimal volume is approximately equal. Thus an electric field couldn't move this plasmas anyway. And what do you mean when
brake, throttle.... (Score:3, Funny)
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Helium is a byproduct of wind speed, not catalyst (Score:1)
Re:Helium is a byproduct of wind speed, not cataly (Score:3, Informative)
The WIND-SWE group appears to have links [mit.edu] to some of the papers they have presented. I'm not sure of the relevancy b
Ok, so, in other words... (Score:2)
A clarification (Score:2, Informative)
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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, a bare proton is the acid part of (water-based) chemistry-- stuff like H2SO4 or HF, etc, lose a proton and it latches onto a nearby water molecule to make H2OH+ [plus several more (H2O)s clustering to that]. Anyway, so long as the proton/hydrogen atom sta
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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 bin for rubbish written as poorly as this...
The truth (Score:1)
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Bob Jones University Online?
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Boring Weather (Score:2)
Eat your heart out (Score:2)
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About the researcher... (Score:2, Interesting)