Ask Me Help Desk - The mind boggles

The mind boggles

Sometimes the "facts" when presented by scientists just brings on a run that by me again! Have you thought this through?

Solar system in big gas bubble, scientists corroborate - CNN.com

If I understand a little about the universe and our place in it, we have been looking out there scientifically for a long time both optically and with other instrumentation and yet, suddenly, we discover we are living inside a supernova with gasses of a million degress surrounding us. Does this explain global warming? Does it explain evolution? If ten million years ago a supernova or multiple supernova occurred this close to our planet all life on Earth should have been extinguished. Further to this we have sent probes to the outer solar system and beyond, how come their instrumentation didn't indicate they were getting closer to a heat source that would ultimately destroy them. Can we really think a million degress on this scale is background radiation? I know, they had only travelled less than a light year, so, in, say, a thousand years, we might know more. By this equation Pluto and the outer planets shouldn't be ice planets but habital after all they have a massive heat sink just a few hundred light years away. Let's face it any supernova within a thousand light years is likely to make us history. Given this new information we should disband SETI immediately because nothing outside the bubble will reach us and the limits of our universe have been defined. Any life inside the bubble was probably toasted long ago, Humans are a little crispy at a million degrees so no use going there. What would life be like on a planet within a light year of such a heat source millions of times the size of our sun? Food for thought

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Does this explain global warming? Does it explain evolution?

Nope, it's not related to those two theories.

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Further to this we have sent probes to the outer solar system and beyond

Well maybe near to the edge of our solar system but that's about it. It's a spit in the bucket as it were.

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Let's face it any supernova within a thousand light years is likely to make us history.

Possibly but they are rare and distant.

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Given this new information we should disband SETI immediately because nothing outside the bubble will reach us and the limits of our universe have been defined.

Not sure that's what they are saying, but we should keep listening!

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Nope, it's not related to those two theories.

Yes I know that but it's the anti-theory, If this sort of thing happened 10 million years ago in celestial close terms, 300 light years is close, there are only 300,000 stars that close and the incrediable thing is there was this massive bang and they are still there

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Well maybe near to the edge of our solar system but that's about it. It's a spit in the bucket as it were.

Yes I think I made that point

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Possibly but they are rare and distant

Not so rare and not so distant apparently, 10 million years isn't that long and there might even be a few candidates within 300 light years.

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Not sure that's what they are saying, but we should keep listening!

No I'm saying it, look there are lots of implications to this, how come gas that hot doesn't stuff up the observations of further stars, etc and the whole radio spectrum?

You are thinking to hard, Cleve. I do read all your stuff really.

Tick

Well at least I'm thinking, which I think is more than those who compiled this report are doing

Can't wrap your head around the possibilities Clete? At least they are exploring.

Tal I can wrap my mind around the possibilities and many others. What we have here once again are theories, possibilities, histories. Nothing we see out there is real time, today. Here's another theory you might like. If a supernova happens within say 300 light years from us it ejects matter at high speed and some of it will come in our direction and have a certain effect on any planetary body it encounters, ever wonder why Mars appears sterile?

If that's all the data we have that's all we have Clete. Do you have better data, or do you just dismiss the data of the Seti Institute? Present your data to us and we will judge your theories, or dismiss them as we please.

Yes I wonder about Mars, but don't fall into wild speculation. Seen the movies though.:D

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Originally Posted by talaniman

Yes I wonder about Mars, but don't fall into wild speculation. Seen the movies though.:D

Wild speculation, what do you think this report is other than wild speculation. Just because a "scientist" said it doesn't make it fact. Let me ask you a question, if you are so hung up on scientific fact. How long does it take gases to cool? What we were just told is that there is this gas bubble with a temperature of one million degress that has been there for 10 million years. What is sustaining this heat? With surrounding space at near absolute zero? The nuclear physics we see in the sun would suggest vast pressures are needed to sustain the process, but this suggests the bubble can be 300 light years across and still maintain these temperatures. What was the temperature at the start of the process 10 million years ago? How many of these bubbles exist?

it takes a lot of particles to have any noticeable heat. A single particle does not have a lot of heat. so yeah we are surrounded by a gas bubble that has a high temperature which cannot burn us because the density of the particles is very low.

A plausible explanation Tom but again if the density is so low what maintains the heat. You see you can't have it both ways, principles of physics suggest that for heat to exist over a long period time there must be mass E=mc2 that represents the relationship between mass (m) and energy (E). What you are suggesting is that energy can exist without mass If the m = 0 or is very small number then e must also be a very small number but here it is suggested the E is 1 million degrees therefore m must be a very large number else c2 the velocity of the gases must be a very large number. If so in 10 million years they would have travelled a very long way

Think about it like this
1,000,000 = 0.0000001 x

I guess the simplest explanation is that there is a difference between temperature and heat. To have heat you need particles interacting . You can have high temp particles floating out there ....There still will be no heat until it is transferred to another particle .

Are you saying that a particle floating in a void of absolute zero will retain it's heat indefinitely, but that void is not a total void. Let me just interject this, the sun emits heat which includes super heated particles and by the time that heat reaches the outer parts of our solar system it is not capable of heating the outer planets. According to your theory the solar wind should be just as effective out there because it has lost none of its heat. Heat disapates between the time it leaves the sun and it reaches us otherwise we would be fried. If it works here it must work somewhereelse too. There is not one set of physical laws working on Earth and something entirely different working somewhereelse

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Are you saying that a particle floating in a void of absolute zero will retain it's heat indefinitely, but that void is not a total void. Let me just interject this, the sun emits heat which includes super heated particles and by the time that heat reaches the outer parts of our solar system it is not capable of heating the outer planets

I think i can clear this up for you. The temperature of a particle in space is simply a measure of its kinetic energy. When the sun emits particles as part of its solar wind, those particles have high KE, and hence high temperature, and as the particles stream out past Earth and towards the outer solar system they lose very little KE, and hence the temp of these particles stays essentially constant. Tomder's point was that the density of the solar wind in space is so low that even though each individual particle is moving really fast, and hence has a high temp, the amount of heat contained in a given volume of space is very, very low. You can think of "heat" as equivalent to the average temperature of particles times the density of those particles - low density means low heat, even though temps may be very high.

However, this has virtually nothing to do with the process of the sun heating the planets. The energy we get from the sun that keeps Earth nice and warm is not solar wind, but rather electromagnetic radiation (a fancy term for light). You may remember from high school physics that as you move away from a light source the intensity drops off by the square of the distance. That's the reason its so much colder on Mars or other planets that are further from the sun than Earth is.

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Originally Posted by paraclete

principles of physics suggest that for heat to exist over a long period time there must be mass E=mc2 that represents the relationship between mass (m) and energy (E).What you are suggesting is that energy can exist without mass If the m = 0 or is very small number then e must also be a very small number but here it is suggested the E is 1 million degrees therefore m must be a very large number else c2 the velocity of the gases must be a very large number.

is wrong on so many levels it indeed boggles the mind. E=mc^2 has to do with relativistic energy per Einstein's theory of general relativity. It has nothing at all to do with the heat of gasses.

If you're actually interested in a discussion on the science behind this report I suggest posting a question about in the science forum, rather than under current events.