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Saturday, February 4, 2012
Deal of the Day ? Clickfree 2TB C6 USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
The LogicBUY Deal for Saturday is a $40 coupon for the Clickfree 2TB C6 USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive (model no. CA3D20-6C) for $129.99.? This is the lowest price found by LogicBUY for this Clickfree hard drive.? Act quickly, because this is an expiring deal. $169.99 – $40 coupon code = $129.99 with free [...]
Local Internet Marketing Services ? Making Your Business Findable ...
Web-based-sales-and-marketing-service
Local Internet Marketing Services ? Making Your Business Findable
Article by Charles Lamm
Making your local, small business findable is critical. People search on the internet for offers then purchase locally. Internet marketing for local businesses is no longer an option.
Leading edge local internet marketing specialists make your business findable to likely consumers searching the Web for your exact product or service.
Search behaviors are changing. Newspapers are lining bird cages. Yellow pages are shrinking yet still clog landfills. Tivo guarantees I never have to look at cheesy local cable ads. Even my 83 year-old mother can print out map directions and coupons online.
Why does your business need Internet marketing at all?
To begin, it?s different from conventional Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Traditional SEO techniques help make your web site visible, which is entirely well and good. No harm. No foul. Traditional SEO can elevate your local business listings ? if those listings are in place.
Statistics:
73% of all online action is related to local content
85% of web visitors rely on search engines and carry out more than 16 billion searches a month
90% of those searches are for local vendors
66% of Americans make use of the Web to locate local businesses
54% of Americans have replaced their phone books/printed yellow pages with search ? and nearly 100% for those below 50 years old
82% of local searchers follow up their search with a telephone call or walk-in
53% of U.S. online consumers research products online then buy at a local store or over the phone
43% of search engine users investigate or shop online then buy locally
Google share of U.S. searches holds at about 72% (May 2010) * Yahoo! ? 14% * Bing ? 9% * Ask.com ? 2%
Sorry to say, nearly all agencies or people who offer local search or local seo are
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Source: http://stress-management-products.com/?p=5619
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Friday, February 3, 2012
EU probes new Google privacy policy (AP)
BRUSSELS ? The European Union's data protection authorities have asked Google to delay the rollout of its new privacy policy until they have verified that it doesn't break the bloc's data protection laws.
Google publicized its new privacy rules ? which regulate how the Web giant uses the enormous amounts of personal data its collects through its search engine, email and other services ? with much fanfare last week.
Since then, it has launched a huge publicity campaign informing its users around the globe of the new policy, which is set to come into force on March 1.
But that launch date may now be under threat.
In a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the group of 27 national privacy regulators in the EU, said the French data protection agency has launched an investigation into the new rules and how they will affect Google users in the EU.
"We call for a pause (in the rollout of the new rules) in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis," Kohnstamm wrote in the letter, which was sent Thursday and published on Friday.
Google's search engine has a market share of more than 90 percent in the EU, with rival services like Microsoft's Bing gaining little traction. The EU's competition authorities are already examining whether Google uses this dominance to stop other search engines from entering the market.
Google said in a statement that it had briefed data protection agencies before making its new policy announcement and that none of them had had substantial concerns at the time.
"Delaying the policy would cause significant confusion," it said in the e-mailed note.
In its descriptions of the new privacy policy, Google says its main aim is to simplify the more than 60 different set of privacy rules for its different services into one that is easier to understand for users.
A spokeswoman for Kohnstamm, who is also the head of the Dutch data protection agency, did not immediately answer questions on how long the investigation is expected to take or whether there were specific concerns over the new rules that triggered the probe.
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Romney turns to killer instinct to win Florida
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, celebrates his Florida primary election win at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, celebrates his Florida primary election win at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, reacts to supporters at his Florida primary primary night rally in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Mitt Romney embraced a killer instinct and leveraged a dominant political machine to crush chief rival Newt Gingrich in Florida's Republican presidential primary.
It was a remarkable turnaround for a candidate who lost big just 10 days earlier in South Carolina.
"I stand ready to lead this party and our nation," a jubilant Romney told cheering supporters Tuesday night in Florida, claiming a resounding victory in a state that rejected his White House bid in 2008.
Romney was beaten down as he came into Florida after Gingrich trounced him in South Carolina. The former House speaker's triumph fueled a wave of momentum that threatened to unite anti-Romney conservatives in Florida and beyond.
Recognizing the threat, Romney had hatched a new strategy even before the South Carolina loss was official.
It would be the end of nice-guy Romney, the man who had usually saved his sharpest barbs for President Barack Obama and let his allies run the attack ads. From the start of the Florida campaign, voters here witnessed Romney's new go-for-the-jugular approach on their television sets, debate stages, and even at Gingrich's campaign stops.
"If you're attacked, I'm not going to just sit back," Romney said Tuesday, warning his competitors that the tough guy is here to stay. "I'm going to fight back and fight back hard."
It wasn't just Romney's attack mode ? and efforts to undercut Gingrich's character ? that guided him to victory.
He also was sitting on a ton of cash and had built an extensive statewide campaign, giving him enormous advantages in a massive state with 10 media markets where campaigns often are won on the air.
Romney and his allies ultimately poured roughly $16 million into Florida television advertising. Restore Our Future, the "super" political action committee supporting Romney, began running Florida ads in mid-December. The candidate and the super PAC also launched an aggressive campaign to court absentee and early voters.
Gingrich was overmatched in Florida on all those fronts. He and his allies turned their attention to the state several weeks after Romney's team had begun its work. He hired local staffers just a month before the election. And he never had the money to compete. Gingrich and his allies spent a quarter of Romney's total ? roughly $4 million ? on Florida advertising.
Gingrich's fiery demeanor and Ronald Reagan comparisons turned out to be no match for Romney's behemoth organization and newfound aggression.
The former congressman from Georgia arrived in Florida on Jan. 22 with a head of steam after his South Carolina win.
One day later, he was confident as he took the stage for the first of two debates before Florida's primary.
But so was Romney, who had hired a new debate coach that week.
The first sign of Romney's new strategy came early as he tore into his opponent, a former college professor who had built his candidacy on the strength of his debate performances. Among other things, Romney attacked Gingrich's work for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac, which would soon become a Romney refrain.
"Freddie Mac was paying Speaker Gingrich $1.6 million at the same time Freddie Mac was costing the people of Florida millions upon millions of dollars," Romney said.
Despite that subpar debate performance, Gingrich initially drew thousands of hopeful Republicans to airport hangars and hotel ballrooms across the state. Fearing crowds might threaten public safety, a fire marshal blocked hundreds from entering a packed venue on the Space Coast last week. And for a time, Gingrich clearly believed he would prove that South Carolina wasn't a fluke.
"I predict people power will beat money power," an almost giddy Gingrich told thousands of cheering supporters in Sarasota last week. "If we win the primary next Tuesday I believe I will become the Republican nominee. So, as the nominee, I get to come back to Tampa in August. We'll have a really big rally for that."
The giddiness didn't last long.
That same day, Romney began running a blistering new ad on Florida television stations across the state. It was a first for a Romney campaign that had been content, up to that point, to leave the negative advertising to outside allies. No more.
"While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in," the narrator said. "Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace. And then cashed in as a D.C. insider."
Gingrich had previously shrugged off questions about his consulting work for Freddie Mac. But Romney wouldn't let Gingrich off the hook in Florida. Two days after the ad began running, Gingrich suffered perhaps his greatest setback on an unlikely stage.
The candidates met Thursday night in Jacksonville for the final debate before the primary.
Romney supporters packed into the auditorium to help win the applause battle. And Romney researchers found a gem among Gingrich's personal investments hours before the debate.
Gingrich walked into a trap when he criticized Romney for investing in funds that include stock from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"Mr. Speaker, I know that sounds like an enormous revelation, but have you checked your own investments?" Romney asked a stone-faced Gingrich. "You also have investments through mutual funds that also invest in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
It was like a punch to the stomach for Gingrich, who needed a strong showing to reclaim the momentum. He was speechless and wouldn't recover that night or in the days that followed.
Florida polls had already started swinging wildly in Romney's favor. And he didn't take his foot off Gingrich's neck.
At a campaign stop the next day, Romney likened Gingrich to Goldilocks, the fairy tale character who complained of the temperature of her porridge. He repeated the jab the next day. And Romney dispatched high-profile surrogates to Gingrich events, ensuring that no attacks would go unanswered in real time.
The strategy produced uncomfortable moments for Gingrich and sometimes clouded his message. Surrounded by reporters and cameras, a Gingrich spokesman forced an argument with a Romney representative, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was an unusual approach for a campaign that appeared to be in a tailspin.
Gingrich's crowds started to shrink. And the campaign further alienated voters by struggling with the logistics of campaigning in a large state ? often arriving at events 90 minutes late in the campaign's final days.
Romney didn't let up.
The campaign aired a second attack ad four days before the primary featuring an NBC News broadcast from 1997 about Gingrich's ethical problems as the House speaker. The Romney campaign refused to take the ad down after objections from NBC, a dispute that only heightened the ad's exposure.
But Gingrich was defiant until the end.
On Tuesday, he predicted the race would continue for another six months regardless of the Florida results. "Unless Romney drops out earlier," he quipped.
Romney has signaled that he won't back off his aggressive strategy so long as Gingrich is within striking distance, saying, "I'm not going to stand back and allow another candidate to define me."
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
Road runoff spurring spotted salamander evolution
ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2012) ? Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. This study provides the first documented evidence that a vertebrate has adapted to the negative effects of roads apparently by evolving rapidly.
Salamanders breeding in roadside ponds are exposed to a host of contaminants from road runoff. Chief among these is sodium chloride from road salt, which reaches average concentrations of 70 times higher in roadside ponds compared to woodland ponds located several hundred feet from the road.
"While the evolutionary consequences of roads are largely unknown, we know they are strong agents of natural selection and set the stage for fast evolution," said Steven Brady, the study's author and a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "These animals are growing up in harsh environments where they face a cocktail of contaminants, and it appears that they are evolving to cope with them."
Brady found that salamanders in roadside ponds have higher mortality, grow at a slower rate and are more than likely to develop L-shaped spines and other disfigurements. In roadside ponds, only 56 percent of salamander eggs survive the first 10 weeks of development, whereas 87 percent survive in the woodland ponds. As roadside ponds become more toxic, the surviving salamanders may develop a genetic advantage over their counterparts living in woodland ponds.
The salamanders that survive year after year in the roadside ponds appear to have adapted to the harsh conditions. "The animals that come from roadside ponds actually do better -- substantially better -- than the ones that originate from woodland ponds when they're raised together," Brady said.
That animals adapt to human activities is not altogether new. For example, fish have begun to mature at smaller sizes in response to commercial fishing. But whereas humans directly utilize fish for consumption, salamanders are just bystanders to human activities. This suggests that the majority of species, which are not specifically targeted for human use, may be experiencing profound evolutionary consequences. And it appears that even species not being driven to extinction -- and seldom thought about -- are changing.
"This adaptation is certainly encouraging for conservation," said Brady. "But our modern footprint is fundamentally changing species in ways we don't understand and, critically, we don't know if these adaptive responses will keep pace with environmental change."
Brady observed the development of the salamanders in 10 ponds -- five roadside and five woodland -- at Yale Myers Forest and in the town of Willington, both in northeastern Connecticut.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Steven P. Brady. Road to evolution? Local adaptation to road adjacency in an amphibian (Ambystoma maculatum). Scientific Reports, 2012; 2 DOI: 10.1038/srep00235
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120201120732.htm
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
US, allies urge UN action to end violence in Syria
United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, left, looks on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters. Syrian troops crushed pockets of rebel soldiers Tuesday on the outskirts of Damascus, fueling some of the bloodiest fighting of the 10-month-old uprising, as Western diplomats tried to overcome Russia's rejection of a draft U.N. resolution demanding President Bashar Assad halt the violence and yield power. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to discuss the draft, backed by Western and Arab diplomats. But Russia, one of Assad's strongest backers, has signaled it would veto action against Damascus. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, left, looks on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters. Syrian troops crushed pockets of rebel soldiers Tuesday on the outskirts of Damascus, fueling some of the bloodiest fighting of the 10-month-old uprising, as Western diplomats tried to overcome Russia's rejection of a draft U.N. resolution demanding President Bashar Assad halt the violence and yield power. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to discuss the draft, backed by Western and Arab diplomats. But Russia, one of Assad's strongest backers, has signaled it would veto action against Damascus. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, left, United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe pose for a picture before their meeting at United Nations Headquarters Jan. 31, 2012. Syrian troops crushed pockets of rebel soldiers Tuesday on the outskirts of Damascus, fueling some of the bloodiest fighting of the 10-month-old uprising, as Western diplomats tried to overcome Russia's rejection of a draft U.N. resolution demanding President Bashar Assad halt the violence and yield power. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to discuss the draft, backed by Western and Arab diplomats. But Russia, one of Assad's strongest backers, has signaled it would veto action against Damascus. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Ja'afari addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters. Syrian troops crushed pockets of rebel soldiers Tuesday on the outskirts of Damascus, fueling some of the bloodiest fighting of the 10-month-old uprising, as Western diplomats tried to overcome Russia's rejection of a draft U.N. resolution demanding President Bashar Assad halt the violence and yield power. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to discuss the draft, backed by Western and Arab diplomats. But Russia, one of Assad's strongest backers, has signaled it would veto action against Damascus. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
United Kingdom Foreign Secretary William Hague, left, addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria as United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listens at right, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, winks at British Foreign Secretary William Hague after he addressed a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters. Syrian troops crushed pockets of rebel soldiers Tuesday on the outskirts of Damascus, fueling some of the bloodiest fighting of the 10-month-old uprising, as Western diplomats tried to overcome Russia's rejection of a draft U.N. resolution demanding President Bashar Assad halt the violence and yield power. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to discuss the draft, backed by Western and Arab diplomats. But Russia, one of Assad's strongest backers, has signaled it would veto action against Damascus. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? Vowing to avoid "another Libya," the U.S. and its allies challenged Russia on Tuesday to overcome its opposition to a U.N. draft resolution demanding that Syrian President Bashar Assad yield power and end the violence that has killed thousands.
"It is time for the international community to put aside our own differences and send a clear message of support to the people of Syria," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the U.N. Security Council in backing an Arab League plan for the country.
Russia, one of Assad's strongest allies, has signaled it would veto any U.N. action against Damascus, fearing it could open the door to eventual international military involvement, the way an Arab-backed U.N. resolution led to NATO airstrikes in Libya.
But Clinton said U.N. action in Syria would not involve military intervention, unlike the NATO-led efforts that resulted in the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.
"I know that some members here may be concerned that the Security Council is headed toward another Libya," Clinton said. "That is a false analogy."
The top diplomats from Britain, France and Arab League pressed the same point: The objective of the draft resolution was not military involvement and a continued delay would come at the cost of the lives of innocent civilians.
"We all have a choice: Stand with the people of Syria and the region or become complicit in the continuing violence there," Clinton told council members.
"Despite its ruthless tactics, the Assad regime's reign of terror will end and the people of Syria will have the chance to chart their own destiny," she said. "The question for us is: How many more innocent civilians will die before this country is able to move forward toward the kind of future it deserves?"
The diplomatic showdown came as Syrian government forces took back control of the eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus, after rebel soldiers briefly captured the area in a startling advance last week. The two-day offensive left more than 100 people dead, making it among the bloodiest days since the uprising began in March, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group.
The U.N. estimated several weeks ago that more than 5,400 people have been killed in the Syrian government crackdown, but has not been able to update the figure.
Russia has stood by Assad as he tries to crush the uprising. In October, Moscow vetoed the first Security Council attempt to condemn Syria's crackdown and has shown little sign of budging in its opposition.
Moscow's stance is motivated in part by its strategic and defense ties, including weapons sales, with Syria. Russia also rejects what it sees as a world order dominated by the U.S.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Moscow "would never allow the Security Council to authorize anything similar to what happened in Libya."
Saying the U.N. should not choose sides, Lavrov told the ABC that all parties should cease violence and engage in dialogue. Russia "would not support anything that would be imposed on Syria," he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd emphasized that Assad must go and urged Russia to overcome its reservations regarding the Security Council resolution in lengthy discussions Tuesday with Lavrov.
"We cannot stand idly by while we see the death of Damascus unfold before us," Rudd told reporters in his hometown of Brisbane on Wednesday. "It's time that we had action from the U.N. Security Council to start to draw this appalling conflict ? this appalling loss of life ? to a close."
"Australia's position is clear as we put it to the Russian foreign minister yesterday and that is we need to take action in New York through the U.N. Security Council. President Assad must go, he must step down, a government of national unity must be formed which brings together elements of the Syrian opposition as well as all those other elements representatives of Syrian society," he added.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov also criticized the Western draft Security resolution on Syria. He wrote Tuesday on Twitter that it "does not lead to a search for compromise. Pushing this resolution is a path to civil war."
Still, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin indicated in his address to the council that agreement could still be reached with more negotiation. He said his country found "some of the elements of our text" in the current draft, "and that gives rise for hope."
An earlier proposal on Syria circulated by Russia had been rejected by some Western and Arab nations for not being strong enough. "We hope the council will come to consensus," Churkin said.
Clinton suggested that more negotiation on the text was necessary before a vote later in the week. "We will have a concerted effort over the next days to reach agreement in the Security Council to put forth a resolution that sends a message to President Assad and his regime," she told reporters.
Earlier in the session, the Arab League made a rare call to the council to condemn violence in a fellow Arab country, and adopt its peace plan.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told the council that the league wanted the Security Council to act "to support our initiative and not to take its place."
"We are attempting to avoid any foreign intervention, particularly military intervention" in Syria, he said. "We have always stressed full respect of the security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian people."
British Foreign Minister William Hague called for speedy action.
"How long do Syrian families have to live in fear that their children will be killed or tortured, before the Security Council will act?" Hague asked. "How many people need to die before the consciences of world capitals are stirred?"
In its current form, the resolution demands that Assad halt the crackdown and implement an Arab League peace plan calling for him to hand over power to his vice president. If Assad fails to comply within 15 days, the council would consider "further measures," a reference to a possible move to impose economic or other sanctions.
In his response, Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari lashed out at the league, accusing it of acting without consulting the Syrian leadership."How strange it is for us to see some members of the League of Arab States seeking the support of the Security Council against Syria," Ja'afari said. He noted that the Security Council often has voted in support of Israel against Arab-backed measures.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday at a news conference in Amman, Jordan, that he was "encouraged by the League of Arab States' initiative to seek a political solution" to the Syrian crisis.
"It is more urgent than ever to put an end to this bloodshed and violence, to start a credible political solution that addresses the legitimate aspiration of the Syrian people and to protect their fundamental freedoms," Ban said.
___
Associated Press writer Eileen Alt Powell at the United Nations, and Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Glimpses of the interstellar material beyond our solar system
ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2012) ? A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story. They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star.
There, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer lies in wait for them. Known as IBEX for short, this spacecraft methodically measures these samples of the mysterious neighborhood beyond our home. IBEX scans the entire sky once a year, and every February, its instruments point in the correct direction to intercept incoming neutral atoms. IBEX counted those atoms in 2009 and 2010 and has now captured the best and most complete glimpse of the material that lies so far outside our own system.
The results? It's an alien environment out there: the material in that galactic wind doesn't look like the same stuff our solar system is made of.
"We've directly measured four separate types of atoms from interstellar space and the composition just doesn't match up with what we see in the solar system," says Eric Christian, mission scientist for IBEX at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "IBEX's observations shed a whole new light on the mysterious zone where the solar system ends and interstellar space begins."
More than just helping to determine the distribution of elements in the galactic wind, these new measurements give clues about how and where our solar system formed, the forces that physically shape our solar system, and even the history of other stars in the Milky Way.
In a series of science papers appearing in The Astrophysical Journal on Jan. 31, 2012, scientists report that for every 20 neon atoms in the galactic wind, there are 74 oxygen atoms. In our own solar system, however, for every 20 neon atoms there are 111 oxygen atoms. That translates to more oxygen in any given slice of the solar system than in the local interstellar space.
"Our solar system is different than the space right outside it and that suggests two possibilities," says David McComas the principal investigator for IBEX at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "Either the solar system evolved in a separate, more oxygen-rich part of the galaxy than where we currently reside or a great deal of critical, life-giving oxygen lies trapped in interstellar dust grains or ices, unable to move freely throughout space." Either way, this affects scientific models of how our solar system -- and life -- formed.
Studying the galactic wind also provides scientists with information about how our solar system interacts with the rest of space, which is congruent with an important IBEX goal. Classified as a NASA Explorer Mission -- a class of smaller, less expensive spacecraft with highly focused research objectives -- IBEX's main job is to study the heliosheath, that outer boundary of the solar system's magnetic bubble -- or heliosphere -- where particles from the solar wind meet the galactic wind.
Previous spacecraft have already provided some information about the way the galactic wind interacts with the heliosheath. Ulysses, for one, observed incoming helium as it traveled past Jupiter and measured it traveling at 59,000 miles per hour. IBEX's new information, however, shows the galactic wind traveling not only at a slower speed -- around 52,000 miles per hour -- but from a different direction, most likely offset by some four degrees from previous measurements. Such a difference may not initially seem significant, but it amounts to a full 20% difference in how much pressure the galactic wind exerts on the heliosphere.
"Measuring the pressure on our heliosphere from the material in the galaxy and from the magnetic fields out there," says Christian, "will help determine the size and shape of our solar system as it travels through the galaxy."
These IBEX measurements also provide information about the cloud of material in which the solar system currently resides. This cloud is called the local interstellar cloud, to differentiate it from the myriad of particle clouds throughout the Milky Way, each traveling at different speeds. The solar system and its heliosphere moved into our local cloud at some point during the last 45,000 years.
Since the older Ulysses observations of the galactic wind speed was in between the speeds expected for the local cloud and the adjacent cloud, researchers thought perhaps the solar system didn't lie smack in the middle of this cloud, but might be at the boundary, transitioning into a new region of space. IBEX's results, however, show that we remain fully in the local cloud, at least for the moment.
"Sometime in the next hundred to few thousand years, the blink of an eye on the timescales of the galaxy, our heliosphere should leave the local interstellar cloud and encounter a much different galactic environment," McComas says.
In addition to providing insight into the interaction between the solar system and its environment, these new results also hold clues about the history of material in the universe. While the big bang initially created hydrogen and helium, only the supernovae explosions at the end of a giant star's life can spread the heavier elements of oxygen and neon through the galaxy. Knowing the amounts of such elements in space can help map how the galaxy has evolved and changed over time.
"This set of papers provide many of the first direct measurements of the interstellar medium around us," says McComas. "We've been trying to understand our galaxy for a long time, and with all of these observations together, we are taking a major step forward in knowing what the local part of the galaxy is like."
Voyager 1 could cross out of our solar system within the next few years. By combining the data from several sets of NASA instruments -- Ulysses, Voyager, IBEX and others -- we are on the precipice of stepping outside and understanding the complex environment beyond our own frontier for the first time.
The Southwest Research Institute developed and leads the IBEX mission with a team of national and international partners. The spacecraft is one of NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed missions in the Small Explorers Program. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.
For more information about the IBEX mission, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/ibex
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120131140114.htm
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