Stellar wind, the BOAT, and the Dragon's Egg

Since the news down here on Earth is not looking so good, today we're going to escape to my happy place, which is outer space.

We've got three new studies of fascinating astronomical phenomena to look at, the first of which comes out of the University of Vienna.  A team led by astrophysicist Kristina Kislyakova has, for the first time, directly detected stellar wind from three nearby Sun-like stars -- something which may effect the stability of the atmospheres of any planets orbiting them, and thus, their potential habitability.

Stellar wind -- which until now, we only knew about from studies of our own solar wind -- is a stream of particles given off by the upper atmosphere of stars, mainly composed of electrons, protons, and alpha particles with a kinetic energy of under 10 keV.  The solar wind is why comet tails always point away from the Sun (not, as many people erroneously think, simply the opposite of their direction of motion, like the wake of a boat).  Kislyakova's team looked for x-rays of specific frequencies coming from the three stars they studied (70 Ophiuchi, Epsilon Eridani, and 61 Cygni), because the stellar wind is expected also to contain small amounts of ionized oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon; as those ions are blown from the surface of the stars and ultimately slow down, they capture electrons, which drop into the atom's ground state and emit electromagnetic energy in the form of x-rays at particular frequencies.  From the amount of x-rays detected, they estimated the mass loss rate of the stars.

All three have much stronger stellar winds than the Sun does -- around 66, 16, and 10 (respectively) times the rate of mass loss from solar wind that the Sun experiences, which is itself considerable (estimated at 1.5 million metric tons per second).  The reason for the higher mass loss from the three stars studied is unknown -- but the Sun's calmer behavior is a good thing, because a strong stellar wind can peel away the atmosphere of exoplanets.  Any planets around 70 Ophiuchi, for example, are likely not to have much in the way of an atmosphere.

The second study is out of Northwestern University, and looked at something that has been nicknamed the BOAT (brightest of all time) -- a gamma-ray burst picked up in October of 2022 that saturated every gamma-ray detector on Earth.  It came from a source about 2.4 billion light years away in the constellation of Sagitta, and lasted for a few hundred seconds before starting to fade.  During that time it outshone the next-brightest observed gamma-ray burst by a factor of ten.

A team led by astrophysicist Peter Blanchard found that the BOAT was caused by a supernova -- but one acting very strangely.  The gamma-ray burst was so powerful that it took scientists some time to figure out that there even had been a supernova (imagine something so bright that it hides the light coming from a supernova!).  "The GRB was so bright that it obscured any potential supernova signature in the first weeks and months after the burst," Blanchard said.  "At these times, the so-called afterglow of the GRB was like the headlights of a car coming straight at you, preventing you from seeing the car itself.  So, we had to wait for it to fade significantly to give us a chance of seeing the supernova."

So why would an ordinary (if you can use that word) supernova cause such an enormous gamma-ray burst?  One possibility is that we might just be at the right place at the right time.  Models indicate that a rapidly-spinning massive star, when it reaches the end of its life, collapses into a black hole that gives off a a narrow jet of gamma rays aligned with the axis of its rotation.  It's possible that we just happened to be perfectly lined up with the black hole's axis -- looking right down the gun barrel, as it were.  But the fact is, they're still trying to figure that out, so we'll have to wait to see what more they learn.

The third study, led by astrophysicist Abigail Frost of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, looked at a strange and beautiful object nicknamed the "Dragon's Egg," in the southern constellation of Norma.

[Image credit: European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Cerro Paranal, Chile. ESO/VPHAS+/CASU/]

The curious thing about the pair of stars in the middle of the Dragon's Egg is that one of them has a magnetic field and the other doesn't.  Frost and her team believe that the same process that created the nebula surrounding them is what created the magnetic field in one of the stars.

It seems to be a case of stellar fratricide.  The more massive star in the binary pair is the one with the magnetic field, and the theory is that it used to be a triple star system -- but two of the stars underwent a merger.  The violence of that collision blew material out into space (the origin of the glowing dust cloud surrounding the remaining two stars) -- and the result dramatically increased the spin rate of the combined star, a bit like water speeding up as it goes down a drain.  Electrically-charged particles, such as those in stellar atmospheres, traveling in circles generate a magnetic field as per Maxwell's Laws, and that's why the more massive member of the surviving binary has such a powerful field.

So that's today's exploration of astronomical news.  Always makes me feel a bit tiny, when I consider phenomena out there in the depths of outer space.  Nothing wrong with that, of course -- humility is good.  And all in all, I'd rather be looking up than looking down in any case.

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Ignorance, evolution, and space weather

Self-awareness is tragically uncommon amongst humans.

There are lots of kinds of self-awareness, and I suspect that none of them are abundant; but here, I'm thinking in particular of the kind of self-awareness that involves an understanding of what you don't know.  Ignorance, per se, is not something to be ashamed of; it is simply something to correct.  Ignorance only becomes a problem when you are unaware that you are ignorant -- and then trumpet your views to the world as if they had the same relevance as those of someone who actually understands the topic being discussed.

I find this problem to be especially bad in the realm of politics, where everyone seems to feel the need to have an opinion about everything, despite the problem that many of those opinions are entirely unencumbered by facts.  But given that this is a touchy subject for many, and one that I myself am admittedly ignorant on, let's turn to a different and (hopefully) less controversial example.

A friend of mine sent me a link yesterday to the webpage of one Susan Joy Rennison.  Ms. Rennison begins her homepage thusly:

This website keeps online some of my research about the new phenomena of space weather driving massive evolutionary change. When I wrote my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution, I was well ahead of the curve. I realised that Modern Mayan Elders were trying to point out that the citizens of planet Earth were entering a New Age dominated by aether or space, and the basic premise of my book was that the dramatic increase and impact of Space Weather was the predicted arrival.

We are put on notice that she is perhaps not a pinnacle of self-awareness a little further along, wherein she states:

Please note: I am NOT a New Ager and this is NOT a New Age website. Please read my Joyfire Philosophy webpage and my essay Spiritual Evolution in the Cultic Milieu, where I make it very clear that not every Seeker in the Cultic Milieu is a New Ager and thus steeped in certain New Age beliefs.

Ah.  So, you think that the Mayan Elders are ushering us into a "New Age dominated by aether or space," but you're not a New Ager.  Thanks, it all becomes clear, now.

Anyhow, Ms. Rennison's lack of awareness of her own ignorance is demonstrated fairly graphically when she starts blathering about solar weather, geomagnetic storms, and their significance to... evolution.  Yes, she seems to think that space weather is causing evolution.  No, I'm not making this up.  To wit (this is a bit of a long quote, but worth reading):

In September 2008, NASA announced that the inhabitants of Earth will be exposed to significantly more cosmic and galactic radiation, as part of a long term trend that started in the mid 1990s. The new phenomena of Space Weather, is the bombardment of Earth by solar, cosmic and galactic energy now causing concern to government agencies, satellite communication manufacturers and the power supply industry. Yet, the September 2008 announcement by NASA, that our planet is now being flooded by galactic cosmic rays as part of a long term trend that started in the mid 1990s, was even more startingly [sic], as scientists speculate that the shielding around our solar system might 'evaporate'.

On January 5th 2009, a press release about a NASA funded study stated that severe space weather will have “an impact” on humans, after years of only stressing the impact on technological systems. As galactic cosmic radiation floods our planet, this will most certainly cause an increase in DNA mutations and therefore generate evolutionary change. Certainly, environmental signals are now being affected by fluctuating geomagnetic signals, which humans use to maintain balance.

Whatever, as the shield around our solar system provided by the solar wind continues to drop, as the Earth's magnetic field also continues to drop, with the December 2008 announcements of recent evidence that current magnetic configurations are generating massive breaches that will permit stronger geomagnetic storms in the future and the ionosphere has also contracted permitting more radiation to reach the ground, there can be no denial that all life on Earth will be greatly influenced by new cosmic conditions. My book, Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution explains the myriad of effects, including the spiritual and evolutionary implications of this high energy bombardment. The Human Genome Project that cost 2.7 billion dollars over 13 years revealed that our DNA is actually 'tuned' by the environment and our consciousness. Therefore, I hope the many recent announcements from the Space community will propel many in the alternative and mainstream world to consider how well placed they are to co-operate with this evolutionary impetus.

Well, now.  Where do I begin?  Here's a list of the errors I found in this passage, without even trying hard:

1.  "Space weather" is nothing new.  All of the indications we have are that solar storms, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections have been going on for millennia.  Yes, the incidence of such violent solar events waxes and wanes, for reasons that are poorly understood; but they seem to have relatively little effect on the Earth, causing minor problems for communications networks but otherwise not doing a hell of a lot except for creating impressive auroras.

2.  Humans do not use "geomagnetic signals" to maintain balance.  Balance is maintained by the fluid pressure in the semicircular canals, a structure in our inner ears that works a little like a carpenter's level.

3.  The shielding around our solar system is not "evaporating."  To be honest, I don't even know what the hell that means.  I can only think that she's referring to the heliopause, the point outside the solar system where the solar wind finally is slowed to zero by contact with interstellar material.  But this point is not some kind of Star Trek-style "shield" that's keeping cosmic bad stuff from hitting us, and there's no evidence whatsoever that it's somehow contracting.

4.  Evolution is not speeding up because of "galactic cosmic rays."  Yes, cosmic rays do cause mutations, but so do naturally-occurring radiation from radioactive minerals, and chemical mutagens (both natural and artificial) in the environment.  The speed of evolution is far more sensitive to the amount of selective pressure than it is to the amount of mutations in any case; and since most mutations are deleterious, an increased mutation rate (should it occur) would cause more cases of cancer than it would some kind of burst of evolution.

5.  The Human Genome Project said nothing about DNA being "tuned by the environment and our consciousness."  This statement makes me wonder if Ms. Rennison actually has any background in science at all, or, perhaps, is simply incapable of reading a press release.


Okay, so I guess I've hacked enough at the poor woman's webpage for now.  My point in going through all of this is not simply to poke at another New Ager -- heaven knows, those are a dime-a-dozen, and if I started to analyze every one of them I'd never be done.  My main point here is that it is as critical to be aware of what you don't understand as it is to be aware of what you do.  There are many areas in which my knowledge is significantly lacking, but I try my hardest not to pontificate on those topics as if I actually knew what I was talking about.  And if it's an area in which I feel that I should be more knowledgeable, I work to rectify that gap -- because, after all, ignorance is correctable.

It puts me in mind of a conversation I had with my dad when I was perhaps ten years old.  He was talking about a man we knew, and he said the man was ignorant, and then amended his comment to state that the man was actually stupid.  I asked my dad what the difference was.

"Stupidity is willful ignorance," he said.  I said I still didn't understand.

My dad looked thoughtful for a moment.  "Ignorance is only skin deep," he finally said.  "Stupidity goes all the way to the bone."