
Nasa’s Van Allen Probes Find Human-Made Bubble Shrouding Earth - rbanffy
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nasa-space-weather-earth-cocoon-van-allen?utm_source=mbtwitter
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imron
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not, 'Eureka! I've found it,' but, 'That's funny!' “ -- Asimov

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ChuckMcM
"that's funny" is the start of the journey, "damn! that is why it does that."
is the end :-)

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nonbel
There are apparently other ways humans have done this as well:

>"The Cold War tests, which detonated explosives at heights from 16 to 250
miles above the surface, mimicked some of these natural effects. Upon
detonation, a first blast wave expelled an expanding fireball of plasma, a hot
gas of electrically charged particles. This created a geomagnetic disturbance,
which distorted Earth's magnetic field lines and induced an electric field on
the surface.

Some of the tests even created artificial radiation belts, akin to the natural
Van Allen radiation belts, a layer of charged particles held in place by
Earth's magnetic fields. The artificially trapped charged particles remained
in significant numbers for weeks, and in one case, years. These particles,
natural and artificial, can affect electronics on high-flying satellites—in
fact some failed as a result of the tests."
[https://phys.org/news/2017-05-space-weather-events-linked-
hu...](https://phys.org/news/2017-05-space-weather-events-linked-human.html)

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johnchristopher
Which brings this mandatory Star Trek passage:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A)

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ChuckMcM
Clearly one of Elon's Red Dragon missions should deploy a VLF antenna and
measure cockpit radiation with and without the antenna broadcasting. It would
be a real breakthrough if we could deploy 'shields' in this way that would
protect interplanetary travel.

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vanjoe
VLF is not easy to deploy, from Wikipedia : "Transmitting antennas for VLF
frequencies are very large wire antennas, up to a mile across. "

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ChuckMcM
In space you need no supports. A 2km dipole using essentially two conductive
mylar 'tubes' inflated with a small volume of gas could easily fit within the
RedDragon's trunk.

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scrumper
You might not even need the gas, just rotate them around the center and
they're rigid.

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ChuckMcM
True, although that would limit which polarization options were available to
you. I am also presuming that the inverse square law is helping here in that
you would not need the kind of signal strength the antennae on Earth need to
get through the ocean, rather just enough to create a Dragon sized bubble
impenetrable to ionizing radiation at a distance of a couple of meters.

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ethbro
ArXiv paper:
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.03390](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.03390)

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awinter-py
whoa

1\. Is this the reason moon missions got a lower dose from the VA belt than
expected?

2\. Are we concerned about the long term decrease in genetic change from
filtering out charged particles? Or it it only relevant to solar particles,
not cosmic?

3\. Would this substantially reduce cancer rates?

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strainer
There may be a possibility that this could affect autoimmune disease.
Incidence of Rheumatoid arthritis has mysteriously been correlated to the
solar cycle and geomagnetic conditions.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150615142841.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150615142841.htm)

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mrfusion
Would this be useful on mars to protect colonists?

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Pxtl
I was thinking the same about Jupiter - the space around Jupiter is
horrifyingly radioactive because of charged particles. I wonder if a manned
spacecraft could be protected from these particles with a VLF radio field?

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harshreality
Is that a correct use of the term 'radioactive'? I thought it referred
exclusively to atomic decay. Although energetic particles probably induce
radioactivity in some of the orbiting material when they collide... damage
from that secondary radioactivity wouldn't be very much compared to the damage
done directly by the high energy particles, would it?

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kobeya
You are correct. Radiation != radioactivity. Radioactive things give off
radiation. Radiation itself is not radioactive. It's in the name: radioactive
= radio-active = radiation (radio!) generating (active).

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mrfusion
Do you have to keep producing these waves to get the protection or does the
shield somehow linger in space?

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jschwartzi
Could we use this somehow to deflect cosmic rays in spacecraft?

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jp555
I can imagine a plasma shield for interplanetary spacecraft would require a
lot of power to run, which would then require even more equipment to radiate
away the waste heat. That seems like it would come with a lot of potential
failure points.

I wonder if storing water in a double hull would offer the same protection for
less equipment/weight/risk?

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OtterCoder
I think you underestimate the sheer mass of water.

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jp555
Well, if you've got people on board, you're going to need lots of water
anyway. I guess it depends on the cost of lifting mass out of Earth's gravity
well compared to the cost of making a highly reliable plasma shield.

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dTal
It's not just the lifting out of Earth's gravity; mass is a liability in all
forms of space travel. For any sort of momentum transfer drive (i.e. all of
them, barring a scifi breakthrough like reactionless or warp), adding mass
will eat into your delta-vee.

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jp555
That's a good point, but system complexity and failure risk is also a
liability that needs to be considered. A few meters of ice around your ship
will be pretty much 100% reliable and require zero power, but for the
considerable extra fuel required to achieve your required delta-vee. An ice-
hull will also stop micrometeorites which I'd imagine a plasma shield would
not be able to deflect.

Space is hard!

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mr_overalls
So would this be protection against a massive solar storm, aka a Carrington
Event?

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pc2g4d
Potential downsides of shielding the earth like this?

If life has evolved over billions of years with the assumption that such this
radiation would be present, it may be disruptive for it be removed suddenly.

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tomtomistaken
Can such radio bubbles influence the navigation ability of animals?

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astrodust
Depends on the animal, as many simply "observe" (perhaps literally) the
magnetic field:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoreception)

VLF transmissions probably don't twig the senses all that much, but it's an
interesting hypothesis.

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ozim
If they have 1MW VLF antenna that can take down planes, I can imagine it can
also protect from cosmic rays.

[http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/naval-base-link-to-
qantas-...](http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/naval-base-link-to-qantas-
plunge/2008/11/14/1226318890475.html)

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b3lvedere
Thanks submarines! :)

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Freestyler_3
Does it have any effect on the auroras?

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futun
Time for some climate science recalculations?

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astrodust
Just a quick update here, but particles in outer space are not part of the
climate.

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hashkb
Exception proves the rule! Humans have positive effect on environment.
Deregulate it all!

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IanCal
> Exception proves the rule!

This is not really related to the topic but for anyone else wondering like I
did for many years how this statement makes sense (given that it is usually
used in a phrase meaning a single counter example proves the general case true
for some inexplicable reason), the phrase actually means something else.

A single counter example can prove a general rule exists in conversation,
because we don't normally isolate examples unless they're somehow special. For
example, if you come to my house, and I point at one of the chairs and say
"you can't sit in that chair" you would assume you _could_ sit in one of the
others even though I haven't said so.

The example on wikipedia is "parking is not allowed on Sundays", which would
lead you to assume that parking was allowed on other days. As it says there, a
more explicit wording would be "the exception that proves the existence of the
rule."

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randallsquared
That's an interesting interpretation, but I was under the impression that the
word "proves" was meant in its older sense as "tests". The phrase "the
exception tests the rule" would convey the same "well, if you have to call out
an exception, that means that the rule is otherwise operative" meaning you
ascribe to it, but I think the etymology supports it better.

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itp
The phrase "exception that proves the rule" is from the Latin "exceptio probat
regulam in casibus non exceptis," or "the exception confirms the rule in cases
not excepted." The Wikipedia article[0] is actually pretty interesting, and
among other things suggests that your interpretation of "proves" as "tests" is
false.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule)

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unFou
You shouldn't always accept Wikipedia entries on face value.

The word "probat" in the latin phrase has been translated in Wiki to
"confirm", but could alternately be interpreted as "test" or "inspect":

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/probo](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/probo)

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billiam
My first thought: maybe we will live longer because of less cancer from those
charged particles? Our nuclear subs are helping us live longer!

My second thought: those particles are essential for mutagenesis, which is a
primary driver of evolution, not just in us but everything. The sixth great
species extinction we are causing is not enough, we're literally living in an
evolutionary bubble, decreasing the likelihood that whatever survives us will
be able to adapt over millions of years.

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Filligree
You don't need to worry about that second one. The rate at which mutations
happen is itself controlled by evolution, through some pretty sophisticated
mechanisms, and if it drops that way it'll just adjust itself right back up.

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dflock
I imagine that feedback loop is surprisingly long.

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astrodust
A million years is an instant as far as the universe is concerned.

