Out at the boundary of our solar system, pressure runs high. This pressure, the force plasma, magnetic fields and particles like ions, cosmic rays and electrons exert on one another when they flow and collide, was recently ...
Space Exploration
Oct 8, 2019
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At 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, the Voyager 1 space probe is the most distant human-made object ever to leave our planet.
Space Exploration
Dec 14, 2012
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As they near the outer reaches of the solar system, for the past several years the two Voyager spacecraft have been sending back observations that challenge scientists' views of the physics at the edge of the heliosphere, ...
Space Exploration
Oct 29, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager 2 has successfully switched to the backup set of thrusters that controls the roll of the spacecraft. Deep Space Network personnel sent commands to the spacecraft to make the change on Nov. ...
Space Exploration
Nov 15, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Deep Space Network personnel sent commands to the Voyager 2 spacecraft Nov. 4 to switch to the backup set of thrusters that controls the roll of the spacecraft. Confirmation was received today that ...
Space Exploration
Nov 7, 2011
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When Voyager 1 passed into the heliosheath in 2004, it became the first man-made object to explore the remote edge of the Sun’s magnetic influence. Launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, the probe was designed to study ...
Space Exploration
Jun 1, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In which direction is the sun's stream of charged particles banking when it nears the edge of the solar system? The answer, scientists know, is blowing in the wind. It's just a matter of getting NASA's Voyager ...
Space Exploration
Mar 9, 2011
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The heliosphere is a bubble in space "blown" into the interstellar medium (the hydrogen and helium gas that permeates the galaxy) by the solar wind. Although electrically neutral atoms from interstellar volume can penetrate this bubble, virtually all of the material in the heliosphere emanates from the Sun itself. It was thought for decades that it extends in a long comet-like heliotail, but in 2009 data from the Cassini and IBEX show a different shape. However, depiction of the heliotail is still common. Another change is that the heliosheath area is not smooth but filled with magnetic bubbles.NASA 2011
For the first ten billion kilometres of its radius, the solar wind travels at over a million km per hour. As it begins to drop out with the interstellar medium, it slows down before finally ceasing altogether. The point where the solar wind slows down is the termination shock; then there is the heliosheath area; then the point where the interstellar medium and solar wind pressures balance is called the heliopause; the point where the interstellar medium, traveling in the opposite direction, slows down as it collides with the heliosphere is the bow shock.
As of June 2011, the heliosheath area is thought to be filled with magnetic bubbles (each about 1 AU wide), creating a "foamy zone". The theory helps explain in situ heliosphere measurements by the two Voyager probes.
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