AUG 11, 2003 - Galactic Dust is blasting through our solar system thicker than usual, according to the Ulysses spacecraft operated by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Ulysses has been monitoring the galactic dust flowing through our local system for over ten years now, and detected a sharp increase in galactic dust at the end of last year - triple what it was when Ulysses first began its observations in the early '90s. The increase has been attributed to a weakening in the solar wind flowing outward from our parent star. The solar wind weakens at intervals of about 11 years, when the Sun reverses its magnetic field during the solar maximum. This reversed magnetic polarity will act to channel even more galactic dust into the solar system, once the Sun's magnetic field settles down in 2004-2005. In turn, this will probably increase the amount of extraterrestrial material that rains down to Earth. What effect will this have? One theory is that sustained periods of high dust impacting our atmposphere could be responsible for past ice ages and mass extinctions. Watch the weather, and consider how what is above is linked to what is below.
