{"id":207,"date":"2012-02-09T22:36:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T20:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/?p=207"},"modified":"2012-03-02T14:46:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T12:46:29","slug":"local-interstellar-cloud-and-galactic-superwave-effects-on-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"Local Interstellar Cloud and Galactic Superwave effects on the Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Illustration<\/a>

The Local Interstellar Cloud. <\/p><\/div>\n

Illustration courtesy of Linda Huff \u00a0(American Scientist), Priscilla Frisch (U. Chicago)<\/p>\n

Though we may have already been inside what is known as the Local Interstellar Cloud<\/a> for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, scientists have been discussing regional areas, aka “cloudlets”, of variable density that we may have entered into as recently as the 1990’s. For example, see this NASA story from Feb. 2002<\/a> or this NASA story from Jan 2003<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Some of those cloudlets might be hundreds of times denser than the local fluff,” says Priscilla Frisch, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago who studies the local interstellar medium. “If we ran into one, it would compress the Sun’s magnetic field and allow more cosmic rays to penetrate the inner solar system, with unknown effects on climate and life.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A collection of articles with brief summaries about this phenomenon may be found here: http:\/\/www.susanrennison.com\/Joyfire_Interstellar_Cloud_Index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

There seems to be a large overlap here with Dr. LaViolette’s theories about the galactic superwave and the chain-reaction effect it would have on the solar system, Sun, and Earth, with past events being recorded in the Earth’s polar ice core record. \u00a0A few questions come to mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How likely is it that the solar system’s movement through these variable density clouds will affect the Sun and Earth in a way similar to how a superwave has done in the past? Do you have any general thoughts on the significance of the Local Interstellar Cloud and its cloudlets with respect to its effects on our solar system\/Sun\/Earth\/human bodies\/minds? \u00a0Is this a real danger to be concerned with?<\/li>\n
  2. Would such an event inject extra-terrestrial dust sufficient to produce increased concentrationsof cosmic dust indicators similar to those you found in ice age polar ice core samples?<\/li>\n
  3. Is it fair to say that possibly some of the evidence for elevated cosmic ray activity found in ice age ice core samples could be evidence for this kind of “compression” of the Sun’s heliosphere\/magnetic field\/etc. by these cloudlets?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    ————————————————————<\/p>\n

    I will try here to answer Matt’s questions.<\/p>\n

    a)\u00a0Regarding the first question about the incursion of this approaching interstellar cloudlet. \u00a0First we must ask how close is it and when will it actually be coming into our solar system? \u00a0In this regard, if you check carefully the news announcements made by astronomer Priscilla Frisch, she does not say that such a cloudlet has actually been detected, only that there is a high likelihood that cloudlets may be embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud (i.e., within the Local Fluff) which have gas densities hundreds of times higher than the Local Interstellar Cloud average. \u00a0This Local Fluff is said to be 30 light years wide and travelling past us at 28 km per second. \u00a0So at that rate we will be going through it for the next 300,000 years. \u00a0If then such a cloudlet were as \u00a0close as 1 to 2 light years away from us, at this rate it would take 10,000 to 20,000 years before it reached us. \u00a0I would say that such an arrival date is a bit down the road and that there are more serious things to be concerned with before that time, such as the impending arrival of a\u00a0galactic superwave<\/a> which I expect a very great likelihood will occur in the next few centuries. \u00a0Unfortunately, it is not possible to predict a superwave’s time of arrival through satellite observation since a superwave travels towards us at the speed of light. \u00a0Hence when it has arrived, that is when we will see it.<\/p>\n

    In regard to getting a fix on any such cloudlet, as I understand it, our current satellite and spacecraft observations are not well enough refined to detect anything of this sort with any kind of certainty. \u00a0The energized plasma ribbon discovered by IBEX which is positioned at the outer boundary of the heliopause is an entirely different phenomenon. \u00a0In my opinion there is no relation of this to any so called impacting cloudlet. \u00a0I believe the ribbon to be a stationary phenomenon associated with the heliopause shock region. \u00a0The reason why it is so energetic is that our solar system was impacted by an intense volley of cosmic rays as recently as 11,000 to 16,000 years ago, with a very minor event possibly having impacted around 5300 years ago just prior to the emergence of Egyptian civilization.<\/p>\n

    Others do consider the possibility that there may be a connection between the ribbon and energization by the impacting interstellar wind. \u00a0Dr. Frisch believes that this high energy band\u00a0could be the first sign of any change brought about by an\u00a0interstellar cloud entering the heliosphere.\u00a0 She says that the energetic neutral atoms in the\u00a0IBEX Ribbon derive their energy from energetic ions in the solar wind\u00a0and outermost regions of the heliosphere, and adjacent interstellar\u00a0space. \u00a0But\u00a0we have no direct\u00a0measurements of energetic ions beyond the heliopause. \u00a0So all this is open to question.<\/p>\n

    However, suppose we assume for the moment that there is an impending threat from such a cloudlet incursion. \u00a0Would the solar and climatic effects be like that of a superwave? \u00a0 Well we can do some calculations to find out. \u00a0Given that the Local Fluff (LIC) has a density of ~0.1 hydrogen atoms\/cm3<\/sup>. \u00a0Above it was suggested that an approaching cloudlet inclusion could have a density hundreds of times greater than that in the\u00a0Local Interstellar Cloud,\u00a0hence a density of say around 20 to 50 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. \u00a0In a recent personal communication with me, Dr. Frisch related that the gas density in a very tiny dust cloud could even reach as high as 1000 atoms\/cc. \u00a0If we take this extreme example, we\u00a0calculate a cloud density of around 1.5 X 10-21<\/sup> grams\/cm3<\/sup>. \u00a0An interstellar cloud incursion of this sort, I believe, would have a significant climatic effect and a significant solar effect. \u00a0But the most dangerous phase would likely last for several years, rather than for centuries or millennia as is often the case for the effects from a superwave.<\/p>\n

    I discussed a similar interstellar cloud incursion scenario in my 1983 PhD dissertation which is available in updated form on the\u00a0Galactic Superwave CD<\/a> at\u00a0etheric.com<\/a>. \u00a0Pages 94 – 96 of this dissertation, mention the 1950 paper<\/a> by Fred Hoyle and Raymond Littleton which examined this scenario of climate effects resulting from the incursion of\u00a0an interstellar cloud having a density of 10-21<\/sup> g\/cm3<\/sup> advancing toward the solar system at 1 km\/s. \u00a0They had proposed that energy released from the infall of this dust into the Sun would aggravate the Sun and increase its luminosity by up to 10% mostly in the ultraviolet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    The dense cloud that Frisch talks about as having an outside possibility of encounter with us would have had a gas density similar to the cloud that Hoyle and Littleton were considering\u00a0but would be travelling almost 30 times faster. \u00a0So, there would be a far smaller chance that any of it would be swallowed by the Sun and cause a luminosity increase of the sort they consider. \u00a0Dr. Frisch related to me that\u00a0astronomers today aren’t considering anymore the type of gas cloud encounter effect that Hoyle and Littleton discussed 60 years ago, that they are instead modeling\u00a0the trajectory of today’s interstellar dust grains as they pass through the\u00a0heliosphere.\u00a0 They find that the smallest of the grains don’t make it in at all\u00a0because the Lorentz force excludes these high charge-to-mass grains. \u00a0The largest grains are ‘gravitationally focused’ downwind of the Sun\u00a0because of gravity and the relative Sun-cloud motion.\u00a0 There aren’t\u00a0very many of these large grains because their number falls off with size as\u00a0a power law.<\/p>\n

    So we might expect a similar situation for the passage of the dense interstellar cloud we were considering above. \u00a0Because of its high velocity relative to the solar system (28 km\/s), most of this gas would be gravitationally focused downwind of the Sun and hence would not become accreted by the Sun. \u00a0Hence any luminosity change would be quite minimal. \u00a0Hoyle’s cloud was moving very slow (1 km\/s) and because of this the Sun would have accreted a very large quantity of its material. \u00a0In the case of this much faster cloud passage, let us suppose that the Sun accreted only 5% as much gas causing a solar luminosity increase of just 0.5%. \u00a0By comparison, solar luminosity normally varies by \u00b10.1% over the sunspot cycle. \u00a0So this proposed local interstellar cloud incursion would cause solar luminosity to increase around 5 fold over the amount that normally occurs during the course of a typical solar cycle.<\/p>\n

    But the fractional increase in UV would be much greater. We know that currently the\u00a0solar UV is maximum at solar max due to increased solar flare activity at the solar cycle peak with the\u00a0variation amounting to\u00a0about 10% – 20% of the total irradiance variation, hence this UV change amounts to about a 0.01% change in solar luminosity. \u00a0Consequently, a 0.5% increase in UV of the sort expected from this hypothetical cloud encounter would cause an increase in UV 50 fold greater than occurs over the course of a solar cycle! \u00a0This begins to approach the UV excesses seen in a T Tauri flare star and could pose a serious hazard.<\/p>\n

    The luminosity increase from this cloud encounter would be much smaller in magnitude than the climatic impact I had considered in my dissertation for a superwave dust incursion event. \u00a0On page 96 of my dissertation I propose that the estimated cosmic dust influx that occurred during past ice age superwave encounters could have increased solar luminosity by 0.5% due to cosmic dust accretion by the Sun. \u00a0This\u00a0is in the range of luminosity increase we estimated above for the approaching interstellar cloudlet. \u00a0However, in a superwave event I was noting that there would be a ten fold greater effect on the Earth’s radiation budget due to what I called the interplanetary hot house effect (light scattered from cosmic dust blown into the solar system by the superwave). \u00a0I had estimated a 5% increase in radiation to the Earth just from this effect. \u00a0Also I had indicated that there would have been a significant warming effect due to the reddening of the Sun’s spectrum caused by a dust cocoon that would have formed around the Sun, and also a cooling effect due to an increase in stratospheric dust concentration.<\/p>\n

    These cosmic dust effects, however, would be negligibly small in the case of an interstellar cloud incursion. \u00a0According to Dr. Frisch, about 1% of the mass of the cloud would be in the form of cosmic dust. \u00a0So in the case of the extremely dense cloud we discuss above, we are talking about a cosmic dust concentration of around \u00a010-23<\/sup> grams\/cm3 <\/sup>invading the solar system. \u00a0This would cause about a 5 % increase of the present interplanetary dust concentration, which is rather insignificant.<\/p>\n

    So how much of a climatic effect would a 0.5 % increase in solar luminosity have on climate? \u00a0\u00a0Scientists have searched for whether there may be a solar cycle climatic effect due to the \u00b10.1% variation in solar luminosity over the 11 year solar cycle. \u00a0Generally they find there to be no impact on global climate. \u00a0However, a recent study<\/a> coming out of the Imperial College of London and Oxford\u00a0has found that locally in Europe winter weather is affected, with winters being warmer at the time of a sunspot cycle peak (and solar cycle luminosity peak). \u00a0So far we haven’t seen this to be the case with the current solar cycle since the European winter has been particularly cold this year, but we will see what happens next year. \u00a0It is difficult to extrapolate for the case of this interstellar cloudlet, but definitely a 5 fold increase in solar luminosity from the solar cycle peak should make winters in Europe far warmer than we can remember. \u00a0Maybe good from the standpoint of saving on heating bills. \u00a0But I would expect there would also be some global effect with a luminosity increase this large. \u00a0It is likely that it would worsen the past global warming trend and also reverse the current climatic cooling trend that some associate with the recent general reduction in the Sun\u2019s flaring activity. \u00a0This could accelerate polar melting with its associated sea level rise and could cause increased drought in the lower latitudes (e.g., Africa, southwestern U.S., etc.).<\/p>\n

    However, it is likely that this solar luminosity increase would not last for many years. \u00a0Solar flare activity is tied to matter infall to the Sun. \u00a0So we would expect that solar flare activity should dramatically increase and it might occur continuously, even during solar cycle minimum. \u00a0We could likely expect a repeat of the 1859 Carrington Event, which if such occurred it could wipe out all satellite communication, down the electrical power grid on a global scale, and injure electrical appliances, plunging society back to the horse and buggy days. \u00a0The U.S. National Research Council report warning of such a scenario is discussed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Also last year I published a paper demonstrating that the mass extinction of megafauna at the end of the ice age was likely due to extinction level solar proton events bombarding the Earth. \u00a0This is discussed in the following press release<\/a>. \u00a0I don’t believe that the Sun would reach the level of activity that it had at the end of the ice age which is evident from NASA studies of lunar rocks. \u00a0The reason is that the superwave incursion proposed to have been occurring at that time would likely have surrounded the Sun with a dust shroud that would have reflected light back onto the Sun and greatly participated in aggravating the Sun’s level of flaring activity. \u00a0No such dense dust shroud would be present during the proposed cloudlet incursion. \u00a0But I wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that the increase in solar activity associated with the proposed cloudlet incursion might produce a super solar flare of a size capable of producing a solar proton event of such large a magnitude.<\/p>\n

    If solar flare activity were to substantially increase, the increased solar cosmic ray bombardment would also cause increased destruction of the ozone layer. \u00a0The polar ozone holes would likely expand to lower latitudes. \u00a0A reduction in ozone protection coupled with a 50 fold increase in solar UV output would be disastrous. \u00a0People would have to put sun block on any time they go out and would have to carry an umbrella with them to shield the Sun. \u00a0Even if humans took precautions, when they ventured out into the Sun, would animals also take precautions and come out only at night? \u00a0What about livestock? \u00a0A large increase in the UV level could have a substantial impact on the food supply. \u00a0There would be some negative effect on plant life, but would not nearly be as significant a hazard as it would be for animal life.<\/p>\n

    The only good thing about the elevation of solar activity is that this would increase the force of the solar wind and expand the heliopause outward, thereby helping to force this cloudlet away so that it travels around the heliopause rather than through it. \u00a0So the effects of the cloudlet incursion would likely diminish after a few years as the Sun’s activity picked up. \u00a0Thereafter, some lower long-term equilibrium level would likely be reached between the Sun’s level of flare activity and the rate of cloudlet gas influx. \u00a0Currently, due to the lower than normal solar activity, the heliopause sheath is pushed in closer to the Sun. \u00a0So the solar system is currently more vulnerable to a cloudlet incursion.<\/p>\n

    b) Regarding your second question, to compare this prospective increase in interstellar dust influx with the increases that occurred during the ice age (estimated from\u00a0\u00a0my analysis of Greenland polar ice), we would have to first know what is the cosmic dust concentration in this cloudlet. \u00a0Above we estimated that this cloud would have a cosmic dust density of around\u00a010-23<\/sup> grams\/cm3 <\/sup>which is 5% of the current interplanetary dust density. \u00a0So incursion of the cloudlet dust would not come anywhere close to the scenarios I describe for a superwave arrival which would create dust concentrations over 1,000 times greater than what would be supplied by this cloudlet.<\/p>\n

    c) Regarding your third question, whether the evidence for elevated cosmic ray intensities recorded in the ice age portion of the polar ice record could have been due to past cloudlets compressing inward the heliopause, I don’t think that these could be attributed to cloudlet encounters. \u00a0I still think that galactic superwaves are the best explanation for these recurring beryllium-10 peaks found in the ice record. \u00a0It is a point of debate whether a compressed heliopause sheath is due to the impact of a cloudlet or simply to a reduction of outward solar wind pressure. \u00a0I think that it is mostly dependent on the latter. \u00a0Keep in mind that the heliopause is always impacted by the interstellar wind, whether a cloudlet is present or not, and its position on this upwind side is largely determined by a balance between the inward interstellar wind pressure and outward solar wind pressure. \u00a0The presence of an interstellar cloudlet could increase the inward pressure, but the other side of the equation is the level of solar activity.<\/p>\n

    I understand that some astronomers are presently\u00a0alarmed to find that the outer boundary of the heliopause is as close as 1000 AU with the inner boundary at ~70 AU. \u00a0The \u00a0heliopause sheath would be far more compressed during a superwave arrival. \u00a0As I pointed out in my dissertation, during a superwave event, similar to those that appear to have occurred during the last ice age, the inner boundary of the heliopause sheath could have become so greatly compressed that its upwind side would have been positioned between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, hence around 3 AU. \u00a0This would have allowed easier entry of vaporized cosmic dust.<\/p>\n

    d) Just to add a few more things in regard to the first question. \u00a0A superwave event would pose a far greater climatic hazard to the Earth and humanity and far more prolonged compared to the hazard that this cloudlet encounter would pose. \u00a0The presence of this interstellar cloudlet could only worsen the effects that a superwave would have on our solar system since it would provide a greater supply of gas that could become blown into the solar system by the superwave. \u00a0Since the superwave would compress the heliopause to a far greater extent than would otherwise occur, this material would enter far more easily than it would in the absence of a superwave.<\/p>\n

    Some speculate whether military forces around the world have been planning for such an event and this is why they have been building vast underground facilities and fallout shelters. \u00a0A few places that come to mind are the facilities beneath the Denver airport, and many others are rumored to have been outfitted in the U.S. \u00a0I was personally told about an abandoned gold mine which has been outfitted with living space far below ground level with space being leased out to people with money. \u00a0The Norwegian government has been building a vast network of underground shelter facilities, or arks, as well as many other governments. \u00a0Project Camelot<\/a> has an interesting page on this. \u00a0Some industrialists may also be in the know. \u00a0Richard Branson has built 90% of his Virgin Galactic New Mexico Spaceport underground. \u00a0See this AP news article<\/a> and this LA Times article<\/a>. \u00a0Many in the area had wondered why so much of his construction was being built underground considering that land\u00a0in the area is comparably inexpensive. \u00a0Could the CEO have been tipped off about the possible occurrence of a future catastrophic event?<\/p>\n

    So the question that arises is whether all of this may have been inspired from fears about this incoming interstellar cloudlet and kept secret so as not to cause financial panic. \u00a0By as early as\u00a01963, the U.S. military reportedly had deployed satellites around all the inner planets and a few of the more distant outer planets at a time when NASA had only just announced sending a spacecraft to Venus; see Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion<\/a><\/em>, page 396<\/a>. \u00a0The military has always been several steps ahead of NASA in solar system surveillance. \u00a0Have they known about this cloudlet coming and have they for a long time been making preparations? \u00a0Could they have access to\u00a0information that is presently unavailable to the astronomical community? \u00a0Or could it be they are preparing for a superwave arrival rather than an interstellar cloudlet arrival? \u00a0This is left to speculation.<\/p>\n

    Dr. Frisch has told me that our knowledge of the local interstellar environment is continuously increasing. \u00a0She says that we are getting more and better data on the Local Fluff,\u00a0including high spectral-resolution Hubble Space Telescope data and\u00a0measurements of the interstellar magnetic field in the Local Fluff. \u00a0She feels that if\u00a0there is a tiny dense cloud within 30 lightyears, we might be able to\u00a0figure out a way to identify it in the next several years. \u00a0Of course, even if such a cloud were at our doorstep, say 140 astronomical units (AU) away, we would have plenty of time before it arrived. \u00a0At the current 28 km\/s velocity such a cloud would move about 5.7 AU per year. \u00a0So we would have 25 years before it reached Earth’s orbit at 1 AU.<\/p>\n

    Finally, some who are outside of the astronomical community and presumably are not themselves scientists, believe that the Local Interstellar Cloud may be hiding a planet X or brown dwarf that is approaching the solar system. \u00a0I find this totally implausible. \u00a0For one thing the amount of dust between us and the far end of this local fluff is so insignificant that it would not obscure such bodies. \u00a0Furthermore if such a body were present it would have to be detected with an infrared telescope since the intrinsic temperature of a brown dwarf or planet drifting through interstellar space that far from our Sun will be no more than 120\u00b0 above absolute zero (i.e., minus 150\u00b0 C). \u00a0Such objects can only be detected at infrared wavelengths in the range of 2 to 50 microns and such wavelengths are not affected by dust. \u00a0They go right through completely unattenuated. \u00a0In addition, the amount of obscuration is very low even at visible wavelengths. \u00a0If we were to suppose that this presumed planet were 1 light year away, the dust column density obscuring it would be only 10-8<\/sup> g\/cm2<\/sup> which is 1000 times less than the amount of dust between us and the Galactic center.<\/p>\n

    Paul LaViolette March 2, 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Illustration courtesy of Linda Huff \u00a0(American Scientist), Priscilla Frisch (U. Chicago) Though we may have already been inside what is known as the Local Interstellar Cloud for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, scientists have been discussing regional areas, aka “cloudlets”, of variable density that we may have entered \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/starburstfound.org\/superwaveblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}