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Rosetta witnesses birth of bow shock around comet (esa.int)
66 points by based2 on Dec 17, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



“As the supersonic solar wind flows past objects in its path, such as planets or smaller bodies...”

>essentially anything moving with any velocity is supersonic in space


Not really. Attempt at explanation:

Solar wind is a stream of charged particles such as electrons and protons which are emitted by the sun. Together these particles form a "weak" (technical term "tenuous") plasma.

Plasma, as a state of matter, has quite a few resemblences to a gas. In particular, the plasma has a thermal pressure and a density, and the derivative of pressure wrt. density gives you a well-defined speed of sound for the plasma. There is a type of waves in the plasma called ion-acoustic waves, which propagate with this sound speed. (There are other types of plasma waves with other speeds of sound.)

When a uniform flow of plasma is travelling faster than the plasma speed of sound, nothing happens by itself. But when this flow hits an object, a bow shock is formed, just as we see in front of the nose of a supersonic jet or a speeding bullet.


This is a very good, concise explanation for what usually takes three chapters to explain. Bookmarked for the kids, thank you!




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