NASA's Voyager 2 probe, currently on a journey toward interstellar space, has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 is a little less than 11 billion miles ...
Space Exploration
Oct 5, 2018
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New data from NASA's Cassini mission, combined with measurements from the two Voyager spacecraft and NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, suggests that our sun and planets are surrounded by a giant, rounded system ...
Space Exploration
Apr 24, 2017
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In 2012, the Voyager mission team announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft had passed into interstellar space, traveling further from Earth than any other manmade object.
Space Exploration
Jul 23, 2014
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(Phys.org) —Something big is about to happen on the sun. According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun's vast magnetic field is about to flip.
Space Exploration
Aug 6, 2013
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. ...
Space Exploration
Dec 5, 2011
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(Phys.org) -- Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. ...
Space Exploration
Jun 15, 2012
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(Phys.org) —Voyager 1 appears to have at long last left our solar system and entered interstellar space, says a University of Maryland-led team of researchers.
Space Exploration
Aug 15, 2013
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0
One year ago, on Nov. 5, 2018, NASA's Voyager 2 became only the second spacecraft in history to leave the heliosphere—the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by our Sun. At a distance of about 11 ...
Space Exploration
Nov 5, 2019
3
277
Immediately after its 2008 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spotted a curiosity in a thin slice of space: More particles streamed in through a long, skinny swath in the sky than anywhere else. The origin ...
Space Exploration
Feb 27, 2016
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When the four-decades-old Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012 and 2018, respectively, scientists celebrated. These plucky spacecraft had already traveled 120 times the distance from the Earth ...
Astronomy
Apr 26, 2021
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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.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
