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Space Science

Team Discovers "Throttle" For Solar Wind 65

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the all-systems-go dept.
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."
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Team Discovers "Throttle" For Solar Wind More

Team Discovers "Throttle" For Solar Wind

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  • Curiously... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by packetmon ( 977047 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @12:51PM (#19324531) Homepage
    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...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ThosLives ( 686517 )

      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by FuzzyDaddy ( 584528 )
        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 got that right, anyway. If not, feel free to make fun of me.

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

    • Re:Anyone else (Score:4, Funny)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @01:17PM (#19324913)
      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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @12:53PM (#19324543)
    Could this be used on long range satellites?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Moofie ( 22272 )
      Long range...satellite?

      I think we might be having vocabulary issues.
      • Long range as in ones that leave our system like Voyager vs ones that just float around earth.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Moofie ( 22272 )
          I'm not sure I'd consider something on a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit to be a "satellite".

          Spacecraft? Absolutely.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by cswiger ( 63672 )

            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 escape velocity...?

            • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

              by Anonymous Coward
              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.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Moofie ( 22272 )
              That's a fair question. Is it meaningful to talk about a "satellite" if the period is tremendously long?

              Insert squishy linguistic notions here. : )

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Goaway ( 82658 )
          As the guy said. Vocabulary issues. "Satellite" does not mean "thingy with antennas floating in space", you know.

  • Space weather (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @12:53PM (#19324549)
    Alpha quadrant : Freezio!

    Beta quadrant : Freezio!

    Gamma quadrant : Freezio!

    Delta quadrant : Freezio!

  • I don't buy it (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Helium has no dipole moment and will be unaffected by an electric field.
  • 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 propellant of the winds it seems that the actualy speed and possible amount of helium is determined by the size of CME (coronal mass ejection) experienced on the surface of the sun.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Lord Lemur ( 993283 )
      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 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

      • 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 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)

    by wizardforce ( 1005805 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @12:58PM (#19324633) Journal

    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by wizardforce ( 1005805 )

      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)

    by Himring ( 646324 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @01:11PM (#19324815) Homepage Journal
    So, helium is the brake and hydrogen is the gas pedal. Who's driving?
  • TFA is horribly written. Seems that the presence of helium is a result of high wind speed, not the cause.
    • 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 blatant reprint [mit.edu] of the original press release. Oh, silly me, I forgot one minor detail: Adaptations are little more than a copy and paste away!

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

  • A clarification (Score:2, Informative)

    by voislav98 ( 1004117 )
    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 field and it moves much slower than the charged protons. Now, charged particles have a very high probability of colliding with a neutral atom (much highr than the neutral atom has), so protons will keep colliding with helium which will slow them down. The ana

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cswiger ( 63672 )

      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

    • 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 bin for rubbish written as poorly as this...
  • 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.
  • 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
    Creation Science based program Elementary through Middle School
    url-removed.com
    Next thing you know they'll have online creationist universities where you can get your degree in just 10 weeks! Apply now!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Fezzick ( 913356 )
      No silly... you can get your degree in 6 days!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by cswiger ( 63672 )
        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 Appendage) planned it.
      • In the fine print it says see 2 Peter 3:8.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tnk1 ( 899206 )

      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?
    • after that they'll fasttrack it to 6 days, graduation is on the 7th.
  • The problem with solar weather is that every day is the same, hot and sunny.
  • Johnny Fartpants.
    • 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, to test how well the method works (and as a further interesting side effect, after they inhale the helium, we can get a good laugh from listening to their high pitched "moos"). Assuming everything works out as planned with the cows, then we can try it o
  • 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.

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