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In a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a Polish-US team of scientists led by Prof. Stan Grzedzielski from the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, offers a different explanation. "We observe the Ribbon," says Grzedzielski "because the Sun is approaching a boundary between our Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot and turbulent gas."
If this hypothesis is correct, IBEX is catching matter from a hot neighboring interstellar cloud, which the Sun might enter in a hundred years.
Such clouds are of very low density, much lower than the best vacuum obtained in Earth labs.
at least million degree Kelvin
occurred a few million years ago
The Sun traveling through the Galaxy happens to cross at the present time a blob of gas about ten light-years across, with a temperature of 6-7 thousand degrees kelvin. This so-called Local Interstellar Cloud is immersed in a much larger expanse of a million-degree hot gas, named the Local Bubble.
Originally posted by gopher mines
reply to post by tauristercus
I agree with your sentiments, but what do you think they're trying to hide?
Originally posted by LazyGuy
Space is pretty empty and VERY cold. A little gas isn't gong to hurt anyone.
This might mean that the Solar System could enter the million-degree Local Bubble cloud as early as the next century. "Nothing unusual, the Sun frequently traverses various clouds of interstellar gas during its galactic journey," comments Grzedzielski. Such clouds are of very low density, much lower than the best vacuum obtained in Earth labs. Once in, the heliosphere will reform and may shrink a little, the level of cosmic radiation entering the magnetosphere may rise a bit, but nothing more. "Perhaps future generations will have to learn how to better harden their space hardware against stronger radiation," suggests Grzedzielski.