Solar Wind Loses Power

[hermetic]

"The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s," says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "This is the weakest it's been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago."

Flagging solar wind has repercussions across the entire solar system—beginning with the heliosphere.

Some of most dramatic effects of the phenomenon may be felt by NASA's two Voyager spacecraft. After traveling outward for 30+ years, the two probes are now at the edge of the heliosphere. With the heliosphere shrinking, the Voyagers may soon find themselves on the outside looking in, thrust into interstellar space long before anyone expected. No spacecraft has ever been outside the heliosphere before and no one knows what the Voyagers may find there.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/23sep_solarwind.htm

[ixion]

1. They're in good hands under the command of Captain Janeway, though

:+

[MullenBank]

2. we didn't listen!!!

n/t

[comtec]

3. huh?

what are you on about?

[Submariner]

4. It sounds like it is related to the unusually quiet sun

shown here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x44338

[Indenturedebtor]

5. Man when the sun cycle starts up again it's going to get uncomfortably warm n/t