Interstellar Space Even Weirder Than Expected, NASA Probe Reveals (nationalgeographic.com) 152
New submitter paralumina01 shares a report from National Geographic: In the blackness of space billions of miles from home, NASA's Voyager 2 marked a milestone of exploration, becoming just the second spacecraft ever to enter interstellar space in November 2018. Now, a day before the anniversary of that celestial exit, scientists have revealed what Voyager 2 saw as it crossed the threshold -- and it's giving humans new insight into some of the big mysteries of our solar system. The findings, spread across five studies published today in Nature Astronomy, mark the first time that a spacecraft has directly sampled the electrically charged hazes, or plasmas, that fill both interstellar space and the solar system's farthest outskirts. It's another first for the spacecraft, which was launched in 1977 and performed the first -- and only -- flybys of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune.
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For the first time, researchers could see that as an object gets within 140 million miles of the heliopause, the plasma surrounding it slows, heats up, and gets more dense. And on the other side of the boundary, the interstellar medium is at least 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than expected. In addition, Voyager 2 confirmed that the heliopause is one leaky border -- and the leaks go both ways. Before Voyager 1 passed through the heliopause, it zoomed through tendrils of interstellar particles that had punched into the heliopause like tree roots through rock. Voyager 2, however, saw a trickle of low-energy particles that extended more than a hundred million miles beyond the heliopause. Another mystery appeared as Voyager 1 came within 800 million miles of the heliopause, where it entered a limbo-like area in which the outbound solar wind slowed to a crawl. Before it crossed the heliopause, Voyager 2 saw the solar wind form an altogether different kind of layer that, oddly, was nearly the same width as the stagnant one seen by Voyager 1.
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For the first time, researchers could see that as an object gets within 140 million miles of the heliopause, the plasma surrounding it slows, heats up, and gets more dense. And on the other side of the boundary, the interstellar medium is at least 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than expected. In addition, Voyager 2 confirmed that the heliopause is one leaky border -- and the leaks go both ways. Before Voyager 1 passed through the heliopause, it zoomed through tendrils of interstellar particles that had punched into the heliopause like tree roots through rock. Voyager 2, however, saw a trickle of low-energy particles that extended more than a hundred million miles beyond the heliopause. Another mystery appeared as Voyager 1 came within 800 million miles of the heliopause, where it entered a limbo-like area in which the outbound solar wind slowed to a crawl. Before it crossed the heliopause, Voyager 2 saw the solar wind form an altogether different kind of layer that, oddly, was nearly the same width as the stagnant one seen by Voyager 1.
54,000 degrees? (Score:3)
Did I miss some kind of memo where space isn't actually cold but burning hot?
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
I was confused by this as well, until I realized they were talking about the plasma within the space, not space itself.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
The temperature of the interstellar medium is it's temperature, there is no difference temperature for "space". The questions is at the astounding low density, does it matter that there are a few high energy particles. Same is with space craft, especially maned ones, have more of a problem of overheating. Thermodynamic become counter intuitive when operating in a near vacuum.
Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that at the densities of gas/plasma in the ISM that any spacecraft can radiatively shed the extra heat.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the question is whether it makes any sense to talk about the temperature of space at all, and I'd also say that the answer is no. In space you'd have to talk about the amount of heat energy per unit of volume, which could then be meaningfully compared to something with which the reader is familiar.
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No, there are TWO temperatures for space: That of the matter, and that of the electromagnetic radiation. Equilibrating with just the matter (an not generating additional heat internally) would make an objet approach the high temperature quoted in TFA. Equilibrating only with the light would approach the black body temperature - somewhere above 2.7 kelvin, how much depending on how close you are to local light sources like stars and planets.
The matter may be very hot, but it's thin. Unless your inters
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Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Interesting)
The trajectory of the probes is the result of their "Grand Tour" itinerary. EG-- they were sent to rendezvous with the gas giant planets, at their orbital locations, calculated on launch day.
Exploring the heliopause/heliosheath was a secondary mission that the probes were tasked with after completing the grand-tour. As such, their exit trajectories were not planned for such a mission; they are the consequence of what the probe's inherited after their final interactions during the grand-tour.
Given the data that they have collected at different parts of that region, there is a scientific desire to get more data sources. Sadly, the only energy sources suitable for such a mission are RTGs, and those need radioactive materials that are difficult to source these days, and politically difficult to launch, because "OMG, what if it lands in my back yard!" and other nonsense.
I hope the scientists can get what they need, but I have my reservations on their getting it.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope the scientists can get what they need, but I have my reservations on their getting it.
As I recall NASA has acquired funds and permission to build a reactor that can produce the Pu-238 they will need for future missions. After NASA lost some very valuable probes to being in the shade too long, too long for the solar panels and batteries to keep everything running, they had a new urgency for RTG materials.
I have confidence that NASA will get their RTGs now.
Exploring the heliopause/heliosheath was a secondary mission that the probes were tasked with after completing the grand-tour. As such, their exit trajectories were not planned for such a mission; they are the consequence of what the probe's inherited after their final interactions during the grand-tour.
It would be interesting if we could have a mission headed to another star. Let's get a probe that can take the fast path to a planet or two on it's way to examine the interstellar material and maybe after a few decades give us some up close and personal photos of other stars and perhaps some exoplanets. We learned a lot from probes launched decades ago and how to make them last a long time. We should start thinking about century scale long missions. The vastness of space is lost on people but if humanity is going to explore space then we need to think of missions that we will not live long enough to see to the end. Long enough that our grandchildren will not see the end. Hopefully this will provide information to aid humanity for millennia.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep, I made the mistake of not taking into account the vastness of space while also complaining of others not taking into account the vastness of space.
I will hold to some hope of a small probe being constructed soon that could be launched to a near(-ish) star that could reach a speed high enough to get us something in the time frame of decades or centuries, and not millennia.
Perhaps we can launch something that will return to us, negating the need for the large dish. Perhaps we will find a means to constr
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:4, Funny)
Yep, I made the mistake of not taking into account the vastness of space while also complaining of others not taking into account the vastness of space.
That sounds pretty half-vast to me.......
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"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
--Douglas Adams
Return mission versus non-return (Score:2)
It wonder if takes more resources to return to us than to broadcast a strong signal from several light-years away. It's weighing a big broadcasting module versus a big return engine system. Could laser broadcasting make it viable that far out, since a narrower signal needs less total energy (in theory)?
But a returning mission would probably mean the probe could slow down enough to get a better look at the target system's planets etc. Something going say 10% of the speed of light when it gets to the target
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To receive data when the probe has reached alpha centauri or similar would need a dish approx 180,000m in diameter, all other things being equal.
What if we launched a probe along the same path every year and used them as repeaters? Use solar sail tech to create large foil receivers. Put most of your mass budget into the transmitter.
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What if we launched a probe along the same path every year and used them as repeaters? Use solar sail tech to create large foil receivers. Put most of your mass budget into the transmitter.
If the Earth stood still that would be a fine idea. Oh, and since we don't want to spend the absolutely silly amount of propellant required to boost a probe directly out of the solar system, we also need at least one of the gas giants to stand still. Any of them will do. Pick one. (Pick Jupiter. It always gets you the best boost.)
And then watch as the Sun leaves us behind.
Ok, so you can launch from the same spot in Earth's orbit around the Sun each year, and despite Sol's rather ridiculously high prope
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Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:2)
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
Did I miss some kind of memo where space isn't actually cold but burning hot?
High temperature but extremely low heat.
The summary mentions "54,000 degrees Fahrenheit", but doesn't mention that the density of the interstellar medium is so low that it's orders of magnitude less than what you could get with a high quality laboratory vacuum chamber. IOW, there's *almost* no ions or molecules in the less than perfect vacuum, but the ones that exist do have a decent amount of energy.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Funny)
I stand by my statement that roughly 30,000 degrees Celsius counts as 'burning hot'.
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You mean it's similar to 1000 degrees C ?
Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:3)
Yeah but then you need to convert to K. Then it's way hotter.
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Technically that's wrong as well. It's plasma hot, not burning.
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Space is 'cold,' as there is very little total energy (relatively), but there are high energy particles zapping about. It's just that your body would be emitting much more energy via blackbody radiation than you'd be receiving, and there wouldn't be enough high energy particles to keep the balance.
Temperature actually seems
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
Temperature is the average kinetic energy of particles, more exactly: T = 2/3 E_kin/k_B with k_B being the Boltzmann constant. In this case, we are talking about interestellar plasma and its temperature (e.g. its average kinetic energy per particle).
What you are probably meaning is the cosmic background radiation, whose spectrum is thermal (e.g. has the frequency distribution of a thermal radiator), and is equal to the radation a black body would radiate at a temperature of 2.7 K.
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Right, because that is how people not in the field always use the word 'temperature'.
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The problem here is visible in your own post. It's a norm to post such numbers in Kelvin, which gives an immediate indication of what is being talked about.
Here they are posted in Fahrenheit, which is very unusual. Whether the goal was deception or just the fact that clickbait expert in question didn't know the subject matter is up to debate.
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Here they are posted in Fahrenheit
So subtract 459.67 (or don't bother, because it's below the apparent significance of the quoted value) and multiply by 5/9.
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Doesn't work that way, because black body radiation values are shown in Kelvin in US.
See: LED light bulb temperature scales.
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That is nothing, in outer space temperature is a Fahrenheit thing! And I've heard distance units are inches and feet too!
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Imagine a single atom in space. What is its temperature? The answer is we don't know from a single atom. If we had lots of atoms and they were all moving in random directions, then the atoms would have a temperature. If they were all moving in the same direction then they would have zero temperature, but the would have a temperature.
Temperature is a property of things in steady equilibrium with other things. In space, there are lots of atoms which are too spaced out to be interacting very much. There are
Implications of 54,000 degrees (Score:2)
All this means is the hot atoms or plasma have a non-directional average kinetic energy equivalent the energy kT where K is 54,000. THen There's a couple of things to understand about 54,000 degrees. First is, why doesn't the space craft simply overheat. The answer is that the density of the hot atoms is so low that it doesn't transfer a lot of heat, and also the rate of heat transfer may be low since the hot atoms bounce off easily. THe second thing to ask is will equilbrium temperature of the craft m
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Did I miss some kind of memo where space isn't actually cold but burning hot?
Been known for some time. Particles are very hot, but there are so few in that level of vacuum.
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If you put your hand inside the cavity of an oven, letting the 400F/200C air wash over your hand, it will simply feel a little warm despite that temperature being more than 4 times hotter than the ambient air temperature that your hand was in thermoequilibrium with, and 400F/200C being a lethally hot air temperature (of course, if you let your hand stay in this hot air long enough it would eventually bake, but that would take a while).
On the other hand, if you touch the solid metal surface of the same hot o
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Where in my post did I say that I "believe" in dark matter and dark energy? I asked the question because I'm skeptical of these notions.
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Where in my post did I say that I "believe" in dark matter and dark energy? I asked the question because I'm skeptical of these notions.
Thou art being trolled. I suspect the troller has found some fine kush.
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"I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe."
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
So far, Dark Matter (which is a completely different concept from Dark Energy) is the only hypothesis that is able to explain the movement within galaxies, the development of galaxy clusters, the observed light bending of gravitational lenses, the patterns of the cosmic background radiation, the stability of stars and some strange effects like the Bullet Cluster at the same time. MOND or TeVeS or what the alternative hypotheses are, aren't able to cover such a vast range of observations. From this point of view, Dark Matter works best, until something comes along that works better. It is intellectual duct tape, yes. But it holds the observations together.
Same goes for Dark Energy. Apparently, cosmic expansion is accelerating, though gravitation should slow it down. Thus there has to be something that counteracts gravitation. The easiest way is to put a constant into the equations of GR (usually called Lambda), which acts like a repelling force, a.k.a. Dark Energy. Again, some type of duct tape, but it holds everything together until something better comes along.
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From this point of view, Dark Matter works best, until something comes along that works better. It is intellectual duct tape, yes. But it holds the observations together.
It's not a lot better than "magic", though. It's a very unsatisfying theory, intellectually.
Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, it is a lot better than magic. The Bullet Cluster shows with a high degree of certainty that dark matter is at play: https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
Essentially, they can see from gravitational lending, that in this collision dark matter is dragging behind the cluster that pushed through the other cluster. There are very few alternative explanations(like probably zero alternatives). So, yeah, dark matter is not such bad theory, we just haven't observed a dark matter particle, because their inter
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It's pleasing as long as you consider it only as a placeholder.
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Every theory is just a placeholder for the next theory that will supersede it. And we don't know if and when it will be superseded. There is no criterion that tells us which theory will be next, except for observations that prove it wrong or show its limitations. To believe you would be able to tell which is which by using "satisfying" or "e
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:4, Interesting)
> So far, Dark Matter (which is a completely different concept from Dark Energy) is the only hypothesis that is able to explain the movement within galaxies,
Possible explanations include measurement bias, which is very possible for measurements taken of such large volumes of the universe with very limited Earth-side and orbital equipment, and misunderstandings of the behavior of galactic centers, and difficult to detect matter such as a higher level of collection of matter into cold interstellar bodies than we currently predict. Since those bodies do not radiate, or only radiate very little and are still at astronomical distances from each other, they're nearly impossible to detect. Our discoveries of more and more literally interstellar planetoids indicates that our estimates of the density of even intergalactic space may be skewed by a very modest frequency of intra-galactic bodies.
So, no, "Dark Energy" is not the only hypothesis that can explain the confusing phenomena of the details of Hubble's law and difficult to measure galactic motion.
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Then there are black holes, which appear to be more common than every predicted.
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So, no, "Dark Energy" is not the only hypothesis that can explain the confusing phenomena of the details of Hubble's law and difficult to measure galactic motion.
I missed where you refuted this with your own competing hypothesis that can accurately explain not only "the details of Hubble's law and difficult to measure galactic motion," but everything else you conveniently left out. And no, throwing out arbitrary "possible explanations" is not a hypothesis that's been tested and found to fit well-established tried and true models (i.e. General Relativity).
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But there are other observations that don't fit your model: Forming of galaxy clusters (e.g. the millenium simulation [mpa-garching.mpg.de]), the patterns in the Cosmic Microwave Background [wikipedia.org], gravitational lensing which points to a higher mass than we can see from the light etc.pp.
From the primordal abundance of isotopes, you can get an upper limit for the amount of baryonic matter that was created d [arxiv.org]
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...In thousands of years, this will be the moment that we look back on and agree: "Yeah, we did some pretty great things with some very little technology and understanding."
We'll probably read about 2,000-year old history in 4019 much the same way we do today; With a healthy dose of skepticism.
How many biblical-era stories are even repeatable in the 21st Century, regardless of source?
Humans are naturally fallible. Because of that, it can often be difficult to believe history. Any of it. Oh, and if we think we're going to rely upon the machines to solve that problem, I've got a machine-created deepfake or two to show you...
Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:3)
How many biblical-era stories are even repeatable in the 21st Century, regardless of source?
Gomorrah, to name one.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes I have the same doubt. I thought space was COLD
Space has no temperature. Temperature is a property of matter.
Those 54000 degrees describe the kinetic energy of plasma particles around the Voyager.
You can call space "cold" in the sense that it does not contain heat (energy) and it does not "keep you warm" as Earthen atmoshphere would.
Re:54,000 degrees? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, the way they describe energy of plasma particles is somewhat misleading if you aren't aware of the subject matter.
That said, technically space does in fact "keep you warm", because there is only thermal radiation as a means of heat transfer that works in space in any appreciable way. That's why one of the major problems with installations in various points in space is cooling.
With most of our terrestrial technology using far more efficient means of cooling such as convection and conduction, it was a fairly significant conundrum especially for manned installations. ISS has huge thermal radiator surfaces for example, almost comparable in size to its solar panels.
Re: 54,000 degrees? (Score:2)
...it does not "keep you warm" as Earthen atmoshphere would.
No, it keeps you warm as a thermos would.
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Space has no temperature. Temperature is a property of matter.
Space itself has no temperature but there are two things within it that have temeprarures - and they're separate (though they do interact and exchange heat energy).
Matter is one - an average of the kinetic energy of the moving particles that collide with your 'thermometer'. Electromagnetic radiation - the black-body temperature - is the other.
Here on earth more of the temperature we experience is the first, via conduction from the air and other
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No, you really can't. Thermodynamics governs the flow of heat between matter - if there's no matter, there's no thermodynamics. And space itself is simply the geometric substrate in which matter exists.
"Space is cold" is based on the radiant temperature of the cosmos - a few degrees kelvin as I recall. But that's not coming from space itself- it's coming from all the other stars, microwave background radiation,etc. Remove all that, and you'd radiantly cool to 0K - not because space is cold, but because
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And why is that? It's not because space itself is keeping them warm - it's because you have umpteen billion stars shining on your object, heating it up as fast as it's radiating away that heat.
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Comment removed (Score:3)
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Close. I was kinda expecting it to bump into a snowglobe-like barrier.
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I thought it was an elephant.
ST:The Motion Picture (Score:2)
Nope, we were hoping it would disappear and come back in a couple of centuries as V'Ger
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Imagine if that actually happened. Would it get reported or covered up? If it got reported, would it get reported in a way that seemed rational or would it wind up being exploited into "we can't leave" or "the universe isn't real" or some other doomsday prophecy?
Re: Admit it. (Score:2)
Imagine if that actually happened.
I gave it a try; apparently I'm not dumb enough. :(
The Zones of Thought (Score:2)
I'm always kind of hoping that Outside is kind of like Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought [wikipedia.org], where everything changes once you start moving away from the galactic core.
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I'm just hoping this doesn't get the attention of the Gurus [gregbear.com].
Summary doesn't make this clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the whole space between solar systems wouldn't be like 54,000 degrees or something. Just those faint ribbons of plasma - which given their density, wouldn't be a major threat to pass through or anything for any spaceworthy craft.
The reason those bits of plasma can remain so hot is because there is literally nowhere for the heat (rattling atoms) to go. There's not even enough gravity or solar winds out there to strip the stray atoms that get flung out... so they swing back in time and don't add up to terribly much entropy over time.
That's actually a common problem with any potential space engineering - space doesn't let you radiate heat very easy like you can in an atmosphere. All that 'cold space' doesn't actually translate to much actual material cooling since there's nothing contacting you to leech off the heat.
Even if you designed a ship that could move without on-board propulsion, both keeping warm and preventing overheating would still be big strains on resource usage if we wanted to transport even partially viable living things with some recent-ish technologies.
But they wouldn't fry from that plasma - so at least there's that!
Ryan Fenton
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Re: Summary doesn't make this clear... (Score:3)
There is in fact a way to leech heat off in space. You can radiate heat via actual radiation, ie via black body emission. It's what all spacecraft use to shed heat, since once you're far from the sun the solar photon flux hitting the spacecraft is minimal (so radiation goes one way, away from spacecraft). If you look up black body equations you'll notice that it's not a small amount of power either, and goes by T^4. For example, the human body radiates about 100 W. When you're surrounded by other radiato
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Fahrenheit (Score:5, Funny)
(...) the interstellar medium is at least 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than expected (...)
The real surprise here is not so much that it is so hot out there but that temperatures measured in Fahrenheit were encountered, which up to now had only been known to exist in the United States and its perimeter.
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I count as a surprise that measurement devices keep working accurately after 40 years of hard radiation.
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Do you realize the irony of your insult? Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin and ALL the other units of measure that mankind has come up with are only known to exist on this tiny spec of real estate we call Earth. What happens when we meet an advanced civilization that uses base 42? Please keep in mind how much your insult is diminished in the context of you making it against the Country that launched the probe that was able to send back the data.
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Alas, but they only know it as base )0. What's it to you?!
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Because, like the moon, it belongs to whomever got there first until someone can tear it from them.
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Thanks to forward-thinking Americans of the ‘70s, we can, today, say that Fahrenheit is being used far and away more than Celsius.
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The real surprise here is not so much that it is so hot out there but that temperatures measured in Fahrenheit were encountered, which up to now had only been known to exist in the United States and its perimeter.
So, in the US we do use a mix of F and C. For science we use C and for weather we use F. It is pretty dumb for the "journalist" in this case to use F in a scientific context and even American scientists would be confused by that. See for air temperature (what we use F for) its easier to just say, "it will be in the 70's" today or it "high in the 50's today" and you only need to remember 1 digit. When you express human scale temperatures like air temp, its actually easier to do that in F than C. In C, y
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They should just have circumvented this and say it is "hotter dan 30000 degrees in any common temperature scale" :)
How is ISM temperature measured? (Score:2)
Units issues aside, does any know how they're measuring temperature? In general, what are the ways to measure temperatures of a very sparse gas/plasma at crazy high temperatures? Is there something other than spectral, or is that what the Voyager spacecraft are using?
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They use the plasma wave system: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/m... [nasa.gov]
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There are only a few scientific instruments still working which helps narrow things down. There's the Magnetometer, Plasma Spectrometer, Low Energy Charged Particle Experiment and the Cosmic Ray System.
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Unlike Russel's Teapot, we know the probes exist for several reasons.
1) We have records of their construction, and launch.
2) They sent back pretty pictures of the gas giants that were headline news for the day.
3) If you have a big enough dish to collect the (very weak) signal, you can listen for them, even with amateur radio equipment. They are constantly broadcasting their telemetry and instrument feeds, as well as their heartbeat signals.
Russel's teapot has none of those things going for it. :P
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Be careful with that invocation of Poe's Law there sir. You might cause a stupidity singularity that absorbs all rational thought!
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Too late. This is Slashdot. The singularity was reached long ago.
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Article was written for people in the US.
Remember, our country is all at once intellectually backward, mostly scientifically illiterate, AND self-absorbed.
The original measurements were almost certainly either degrees Kelvin, or degrees Celsius. Just that given the demographic that would be consuming this information tends to not understand what either of those are, or why they are used (due to scientific illiteracy), the authors of the story had to convert the temperature into a more familiar system.
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"The original measurements were almost certainly either degrees Kelvin, or degrees Celsius. "
I'd guess Kelvin, but when you get that many thousands of degrees, the difference between Celsius and Kelvin is a rounding error..
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Right. What they meant to write is that it's 30,273.15 K.
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Who the hell measures cosmic temperatures in Fahrenheit?
People that went to the moon.
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Nope, the measure was almost certainly in Kelvin. Somebody likely decided to present it in Fahrenheit to the US demographics.
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/o... [nasa.gov]
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Back then, wouldn't it have been Rankine?
Yes, I have sheaves of old NASA and Rocketdyne papers.
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Well said. Some people just don't get sarcasm.
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The people who built the spacecraft, measuring equipment, and launched it and did the analysis.
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Who the hell measures cosmic temperatures in Fahrenheit?
Your great grandparents?
Re: Ain't that cool? (Score:3)
This is the stuff mankind has to oversome in order to explore the universe
This is the stuff mankind has to learn how to bypass in order to explore the universe.
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There is an old Asian saying .... that teaches you to look inside first
Humanity isn't meant to waste life on the consumption of the material world. There is so much more to life that people flounder to understand and accept.
Some people are just doing well to tie their shoes in the morning.