Talk:Bow shock

The picture makes it appear like inferno starts after the bow shock. Is there something to this? Is there some kind of interstellar plasma outside this border that will destroy the poor Voyagers? Salleman 12:13, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

90,000 AU?

"The Earth's bow shock is about 100-1000 km thick and located about 90,000 AU from the Earth." This can't be correct; Perhaps this should be 90,000 km? Stompbox 21:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 - 90,000 km is less than the distance from the earth to the sun.

From the article: "The best-studied example of a bow shock is that occurring where the solar wind encounters the Earth's magnetopause..." The distance from the earth to the sun-facing side of the magnetopause is roughly 70,000 km. Also, from Magnetosphere, "An additional feature is a collision-free bow shock which forms in the solar wind ahead of Earth, typically at 13.5 RE on the sunward side." 13.5 RE (earth radii) is just over 86,000 km. I'm going to go ahead and make the change. Stompbox 20:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Seems to be fixed. Termination shock is where solar wind slows down, bow shock is where ISM slows down --Keflavich 21:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Graphics

Update: I believe the issues have mostly been corrected. (No, the bow shock will not incinerate the Voyagers; hopefully the solar wind/ISM supersonic/subsonic distinctions have been clarified in the article.) Could someone who knows more about plasma astrophysics please verify? Ckerr 10:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not just astronomy...

The article begins as "In a planetary magnetosphere, the bow shock is the boundary at which the solar wind abruptly drops..." and ends with "Astronomy stubs", as if bow shock is something special just in astronomy, which I think is not the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought bow shock is a more general aerodynamic (to be precise, fluid dynamic) phenomenon (though I don't know about Termination shock mentioned above). So, could someone add another examples such as reentry vehicles and hopefully revise the article as a general fluid dynamic term? (and perhaps this is to be categorized under Category:Fluid dynamics) - Marsian / talk 13:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, pick up any book on Gas Dynamics or Supersonic Aerodynamics. A bow shock forms ahead of any blunt body passing through any medium (gas, liquid, or solid) at supersonic speed. Now here's a question for you: how is "bow" pronounced? Like "bough" (because it's ahead of the body) or "beau" (because of its curved shape, like a bow for shooting arrows)?--BillFlis 15:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it was called "bow shock" because its shape and behaviour are similar to how water behaves when the front (i.e. bow) of a ship passes through it. Can't source this however (also, haven't tried). 194.187.213.95 21:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article JUST deals with an astronomical subject. If there are OTHER Bow Shocks than they should be under "Bow Shock (what ever)"aceslead 03:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There is only one concept of the bow shock. This astronomical phenomena is simply an example of this one idea on a large scale. I think that this article should focus on fluid mechanics. This solar wind portrayal of bow shocks may then be listed within the fluids topic as an example of one. Jadias 18:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stub No More

Astronomy stub should go it should just fall under the category: astronomy.aceslead 03:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I am removing the stub. in the future dont worry about removing stubs - if an article seems to define itself and contain enough relevant information, it is not a stub. Just go ahead and remove the stub, and if someone has a problem with that, they will re-add the stub later. --Exodio 01:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]