Talk:Termination shock

"what does all this stuff mean"- while the best way is for everyone is to draw a conclusion from the facts many people myself included wont understand what any of this stuff means or represents, 1+1=2 has no meaning if you cant in some way relate it to yourself(having one penny and finding another as an example) what does this termination shock do? is it going to annhilate anything that crosses it? is it sonic energy or electromagnetic energy etc, as far as i know theres not enough matter in space to rip a new one like passing the sonic barrier might do on earth.

"supersonic" means faster than "sound", but in astronomy the sound speed is a generic term for one way to calculate particle velocity. In terms of this article the partilces under consideration are the ejecta from the sun. Not very dense, but a medium nonetheless. - Ian

"Supersonic" is a term that only has meaning within a medium, doesn't it? By supersonic, does this article mean the speed at which sound travels in Earth's atmosphere, or some other, cosmic definition? --Golbez 20:22, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Supersonic == faster than the speed at which sound travels through the solar wind plasma.
 * The problem would seem to be that the term links to an article (supersonic) that doesn't address this cosmic scenario; thus, the use of the term in the article is, by extension, misleading (a scientifically-naive reader, after reading this article and the linked article, would come away assuming the speed at the shock is the speed of sound). Jgm 00:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"The Voyager I spacecraft is believed to have passed termination shock in February 2004." ... and ... "The Voyager I spacecraft is believed to have passed termination shock in December 2004." They can't both be right. -- Cooper (I should really register and all)


 * We welcome all newcomers :) &rarr;Raul654 06:18, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * Seems like December 2004 . I'll correct the Voyager 1 article now, as it has Feb 2003 as the date, and I'll trust NASA on this. :-) Forget about it, I did no changes as one date was given for "entering", another thing is for "passing". - Jugalator 06:30, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * If we believe the Voyager 1 article, its travelling at 3.2AU/year. Exactly how wide is it if it takes this long to pass it? jdh41 10:50, May 25, 2005 (UTC) (needs to register at some stage)
 * I'd say December 2004 - Slashdot Article --jacksonj04 09:12, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Given the way the shock moves back and forth, it's entirely possible that they are both right. Still, someone should check up on it. Maybe I'll do it later, I'm supposed to be at work right now... -- Grey Knight 2005-05-25T10:20:00+01:00

Slashdot
This page has been linked to from Slashdot and is getting a lot of vandalism so I've protected it. I'm going to bed, so if someone else wants to unprotect it later that's fine. CryptoDerk 06:59, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * As soon as the article is off the Slashdot front page, it should be relatively safe to unprotect it. I will either do it myself or someone else will come along, but as of current time, the article is still on the front page. Please check this before you unprotect. Inter\Echo 11:10, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

So its the point where the medium (Solar particles) in which the space craft is traveling is itself traveling at less than supersonic speed. There's two questions arising from this:

1. supersonic speed in respect of what? Earth? The spacecraft?
 * Answer: Supersonic means faster than the speed of an Alfvén wave in the local plasma.

2. what is supersonic speed in a solar particles medium? we know at sea level supersonic is greater than 1087 ft/sec, in room temp water its 4724 ft/sec, which means the less dense the medium, the lower the supersonic speed is?
 * Answer: I haven't got the exact figures to hand, but ScienceWorld has a page with the relevant equations. The square of the speed is proportional to the ambient pressure and a quantity called the heat capacity ratio, and inversely proportional to the density. ie: $$v_{sound} = \sqrt{\frac{\gamma p}{\rho}}$$.
 * Alternatively, if you know the temperature T (in Kelvins) and molar mass m, you can compute it as $$v_{sound} = \sqrt{\frac{\gamma R T}{m}}$$, where R is the universal gas constant -- Grey Knight 2005-05-27

please make a link to de:Termination Shock, thx --84.153.168.84 13:56, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Bow shock vs. Termination shock
I'm posting this in both talk pages because there must be a problem. Both articles mention that their "shock" is the boundery where the solar wind particles slow from supersonic to subsonic speed. Now they can't both be right so at least one of them must be corrected. I am no expert on this so I'll let the experts fix it. 32.97.110.142 13:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Busted link
"Evidence" |Evidence seems to be 404'ed. teh TK 00:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Link to google video of precussion solo
Impressive though it is, I really don't think that the link is relevant to this article - I've removed the Trivia section.

ahpook 14:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

percussion solo is not relevant
The Andrew Denis percussion solo is not relevant and not particularly notable (since it is not yet commercially released). If Andrew Denis is a notable musician, he should have his own page, and the solo could be discussed there. zowie 16:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)