Halo & Solar System dust [was Re: biological changes ...]

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Sun, 5 Dec 1999 14:27:43 -0800 (PST)

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Amara Graps wrote:

>
> It depends how you define "vicinity". If you consider ~1 parsec
> away from the Sun as "vicinity", then that's OK. (see below)

Amara, this cracked me up. I doubt anyone but an astronomer would consider 1 parsec (3.26 ly) as within our "vicinity".

>
> Hope that this answers your question ...
>
Very nicely. It also means that I've got to revise the MBrain calculations a bit (since in the "vicinity" of the solar system, things are warmer than I expected). It means that for a MBrain to get the best internode optical communication transmission and the least heat radiation (back from "local" dust), it is going to have a big job to do sweeping through a large volume of the surrounding space to get rid of all the dust (and dust sources). That probably slows down its construction times by quite a bit.

Would the dust density in the halo be reduced so significantly that it might make that a much more attractive construction area?

Also, is there an estimate on the total mass of the dust in the solar system?

Robert