Is a Cosmic Dust Storm Heading Our Way?

[Astronuc]

Fountain of Mysterious Space Dust Found
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/fountainofmysteriousspacedustfound

. . . . our solar system is currently experiencing a cosmic dust storm with at least three times as much dust passing through compared to just a few years ago, owing to a periodic weakening of the sun's magnetic field. And sometime in the next 10,000 years, we'll plow through the G-cloud, a region of dust more dense than the one we're in now.
. . . .
[Donald] York (professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago) and his colleagues have now identified a fountain of dust that appears to be just the sort of culprit they have been looking for.

The dust factory is a double star system, designated HD 44179, that sits within the strikingly beautiful Red Rectangle, an oddly geometric cloud of gas and dust located 2,300 light-years away.

Mystery of Red Space Glow Solved (06 April 2007)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070406_red_rectangle.html


Dying Star (HD 44179, "Red Rectangle") Sculpts Rungs of Gas and Dust (2004)
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/11/image/a/
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040513.html

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~gekko/redrect.html

 

[junglist]

interesting read. thanks for posting.