Astronomers Shocked: "The Edge Of The Solar System Is Tied Up With A Ribbon" (VIDEO)

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has just produced new images of the solar system that has shocked astronomers. This first full-sized map shows 9 billion miles of atoms surrounding the solar system that scientists are describing as looking like a ribbon. This completely defied expectations: astronomers believed the atoms were evenly distributed rather than densely packed together in this ribbon formation.

Take a look at the map for yourself.

National Geographic reports:

"Exactly where the [galaxy's] magnetic field is most wrapped around the outer boundary of the heliosphere, that's where the ribbon runs," [IBEX principal investigator David] McComas said.

"That could be an unbelievably remarkable coincidence, or it could be a fabulous clue that somehow this external magnetic field is actually imprinting onto our heliosphere through some process that we don't yet understand."

Read more from National Geographic about the discovery.

Read more from Science News about it here.

Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[knosiswar]

wow

[HopeGrenade]

Why does all science have to be dumbed down for the general public to care? "This gas effect looks like GOD!" "We're gonna bomb the moon!"

Tied up with a ribbon? Come on.

[evenso]

This is called the "bow shock", the place where the sun's magnet field makes contact with the galactic magnetic field. Highly charges particles erupt here and produce this "ribbon" image. Similiarly, where Earth's or Jupiter's magnetic fields hit the solar wind in our solar system, active areas like this ribbon occur.

[Saidas]

That's not ribbon....it's red tape!

[ByroniusMaximus]

oh, NONSENSE> All this has been "settled science" for decades. Don't believe these myths --- keep the faith!

[Number 6]

Huh? What is "settled science?" What "faith" should we keep?

[nico89]

Great. We're an eyeball.

[ReelBusy]

More like a fishbowl.
We are all some petrie dish science fair experiment in the bigger universe.
Maybe.

[bccmeteorites]

Something has gone wrong in the field of astronomy. Many widely held beliefs fly in the face of observational evidence. Theories go through such contortions to resolve inconsistencies that the ideas can no longer be explained in simple language. Alternative ideas are often rejected out of hand simply because they challenge the status quo. The result... many of today's theories are unnecessarily complex.

Meta Research is dedicated to bringing some common sense back to this field. Here we challenge ideas that have consistently failed to make successful predictions, examine new paradigms, and advocate the ideas found to be most worthy of further consideration and testing.

[bccmeteorites]

The above is an introduction to Tom van Flandern's web site MetaResearch where one can get lots of useful information on Astronomy.

http://www.metaresearch.org/

[ReelBusy]

You call it an introduction.
We call it, shilling or trolling for webhits.

[kilgore trout]

Meta-rational astronomy, from the man who brought us the ancient face sculpture on Mars and claims that Einstein fabricated his theory of relativity. Great stuff.
For more on the theories of Dr. Thomas C Van Flandern, see: http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/06/einstein/index.html

[kilgore trout]

From http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/06/einstein/index.html:

"In his book Cranks, Quarks and the Cosmos, science writer and physicist Jeremy Bernstein points out that one of the criteria that always defines crank 'science' is its lack of correspondence with the body of scientific knowledge that has gone before it.

"I would insist that any proposal for a radically new theory in physics, or in any other science, contain a clear explanation of why the precedent science worked," he writes. Einstein did this, as the first page of his paper on special relativity, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", illustrates perfectly.

In contrast, "the crank," Bernstein writes, "is a scientific solipsist who lives in his own little world. He has no understanding nor appreciation of the scientific matrix in which his work is embedded ... In my dealings with cranks, I have discovered that this kind of discussion is of no interest to them."

[Number 6]

Somewhere, Groucho is rolling is eyes.

[Pem3]

So this means our solar system has a atomic skin of sorts that is cool.

[Rapier]

All wrapped up like a gift as it surely is.

[oldfuzz]

Just in time for Winter Solstice.

[rsaillant1]

Could that be an "electric fence" put in place by who-ever, what-ever, to
keep us at "home" so that we don't spread our particular brand of "crazy"
throughout the known Universe?

[Kaviraj]

Let us hope so.

[ReelBusy]

Good theory.
Let's call it a PalinGate.



My apologies to Stargate Universe.....

[jfoxx]

This reminds me of the old SNL sketch of the McLaughlin Group.. where he asked what was at the edge of the universe..

WRONG! It was a huge fence with a junk yard dog guarding it. Something like that.. it was funny when he said it, honest.

[SonofLiberty1]

After finding out that Comets produce X RAYS...mostly from their plowing into the Interplanetary field, it's not so surprising that something akin to this could happen at the interface of our Interplanetary field and the general interstellar one.

[doublethink]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlTagSZPm7o&feature=player_embedded

for a different opinion from Europe!

[nico89]

wow. not impressed.

[wltdnfaded]

Oh good lord, sh.ut u.p.

[LisaMarieC]

oooooh! climate treaty! I'm a-scared.

[kilgore trout]

Change your screen name to "half-think."

[blindhammer]

Okay. Basic explanation.

Conventional astrophysics predicted that particles emitting from the sun would be, more or less, uniformly distributed across the solar system.

This discovery seems to prove that these particles are not uniformly distributed but, instead, seem to gather in bunches perpendicular to a magnetic field.

It is important to understand that conventional astrophysics places very little importance on charged particles and magnetic fields. This is why this discovery lends credence to the plasma view of the universe which basically states that space is filled with plasma particles and most of the structure in the universe, including the sun, are formed by magnetic fields (such as Birkeland currents) as opposed to simple gravity.

In other words, the conventional model of the universe cannot explain the data that you are looking at in that little diagram. This, along with the results from the Deep Impact mission seems to question the very foundations of astrophysics today.

[TMAN]

Many thanks for taking the time, now, your statement:
"...results from the Deep Impact mission seems to question the very foundations of astrophysics today...)
How so? Again, thanks so much for this angle.

[blindhammer]

Deep Impact was the NASA mission that sent a small craft smashing into the comet Tempel 1 back in 2005.

Conventional astrophysics believes that comets are, more or less, chunks of ice and rock. Comet tails are believed to be water vapor that is caused by the melting of this ice as a comet approaches the sun.

The plasma universe explanation is that comets are chunks of rock but that the comet tail is not water vapor. Instead, comets "develop a charge imbalance with the higher voltage and charge density near the Sun that initiates discharge and the formation of a glowing plasma sheath—appearing as the coma and tail."

During the Deep Impact mission, a couple things happened. First, shortly before the craft crashed into the comet, there was a large flash which defies conventional explanation. The electrical explanation is that the flash was caused by charge differences between the craft and the comet -- it was electrical discharge.

Second, the impact between the craft and the comet caused an unusually large explosion.

Both of these events stumped NASA scientists but were predicted by electrical universe proponents.

[fumes]

simple gravity?

[blindhammer]

The fact that the particles are perpendicular to a magnetic field seems to disprove this.

As electrical proponents point out, gravity is the weakest force (that we know of) in the universe. As an example, take a small magnet and place it over a small metal object. In general, the magnet should attract the object meaning that the magnet has overcome the Earth's gravity.

Gravity is very, very weak, which is why the discovery of magnetic fields or charged bodies in the universe is of great importance; electric fields would HAVE to play a major role in the universe since it is vastly more powerful than gravity.

[tb92]

I think this discovery is cool, but I've had "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" stuck in my head for far too long now.

[tiemposdepaz]

Okay, maybe I'm just not observant, but what am I looking at? I don't understand what the heck they are talking about. Sometimes I'm really envious of people who are motivated by things other than sex or money. I'm completely motivated by sex and money, and not science...LOL So, I truly congratulate these astronomers, because, I'm trying to find an interest but I can't. I don't care.

[LightningJoe]

Why bother, if sex and money do it for you?