Protective shield of the sun is shrinking [25% in the last TEN YEARS alone]

The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, NASA scientists have discovered.

New data from the Ulysses deep-space probe show that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.

continues

If the heliosphere continues to weaken, it is feared intergalactic cosmic radiation reaching Earth will increase, disrupting electrical equipment, damaging satellites and potentially harming life.

Telegraph, London

www.smh.com.au...

Read that entire article, because it is finally sinking in even across main stream.

Something is hapening inside our sun, its growing weaker by the day and this is going to affect our future on earth in a very short time period.

2012 is not looking too silly a event now is it? If we do hit a the VERY energetic belt of the galaxy, a decrease in our protection is the last thing we need... isnt it?



Prepare folks, because some thing is coming down the pipeline, and we are being 'gently' awoken (or made aware) to it in articles such as this. We can tell this by the urgency they scooped up a space craft OVERNIGHT to go have a look.

reply to post by Terrapop


Could this be yet more psuedo scientific fearmongering?

One thing I refuse to be worried about is the sun. Think about it... what the hell is there to be done if it somehow explodes or dies down? Move to underground cities? What happens happens, and if we are to go with a bang instead of a wimper I won't even wear sunglasses or sunblock when the day comes.

It's going to be frazzling!

I fully expect Al Gore to come out and blame humans for this.

Just found the original (more lengthy) article on the Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Well, whatever this is... fearmongering by NASA (problem-reaction-solution type of thing) or real: It (the speed of development) is disturbing at least.

I was on that teleconference and recorded an audio file of the whole discussion.

If someone gives me a link to upload the file and the accompanying slides, I will oblige.
Or...
Would it all fit in my userspace?

Originally posted by Atlantican
I was on that teleconference and recorded an audio file of the whole discussion.

If someone gives me a link to upload the file and the accompanying slides, I will oblige.
Or...
Would it all fit in my userspace?

I don't know about userspace, but maybe the podcasts section has room? If not you could put on any of the file hosting sites, search google for "free file hosting", and a bunch will come up. The first result for me is www.(nolink) which I've seen a lot of people using, so it should be reliable.

So we have to be a bit careful here, there seems to be some scaremongering going on. Let's remember that we have only had good data for this for a couple of decades at most. We know that the sun is a slightly variable star, by that I mean that it does vary a little in output and magnetic field (i.e. sunspot activity) ; this forms a sort of 11 year solar cycle.

Since the heliosphere is due largely magnetic fields, it seems likely that since solar magnetic fields vary, so then will the heliosphere and it probably has a minimum and maximum which it oscillates between, probably over an 11 year cycle.

Let's keep this interesting find independent of the beloved 2012 for now!