Probing The Heliosheath

An artist's concept of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes near interstellar space.


Probing the heliosheath

While the Voyagers have left the planets well behind, they're not beyond the solar system yet. They're still within a huge bubble called the heliosphere, which is made of solar plasma and solar magnetic fields. This gigantic structure is about three times wider than the orbit of Pluto, researchers said.

Specifically, the Voyagers are plying the heliosphere's outer shell, a turbulent region called the heliosheath. "We're smelling, we're touching the ionized matter in the heliosheath," said Merav Opher of Boston University, a Voyager guest investigator.

The Voyagers are helping scientists better understand the mysterious heliosphere. For example, measurements from the spacecraft revealed that the structure is distorted and asymmetric, yanked out of shape by the interstellar magnetic field, researchers said.

And in June 2010, Voyager 1 measured the outward velocity of the solar wind — the million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles coming from the sun — to be zero in its location in the heliosheath. That surprising reading hasn't changed since.

Researchers don’t think the solar wind has stopped out there; they believe it may have just turned a corner. So they've recently started ordering Voyager 1 to do a series of acrobatic maneuvers, to point its instruments in different directions so the craft can pick up and track the puzzling solar breeze.

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More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42836027/ns/technology_and_science-space/

:kick:

...they manage mission control of the THEMIS program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THEMIS

This comprises five satellites in the "Earth's Shadow" studying the magnetosphere and correlating collected data from these satellites to data and observations elsewhere including the intensity of the Aurora Borealis.

My favorite part of the visit, the mousepads that say, "It's not like it's Rocket Science.. Oh, wait, yes it is!"

:P

The five satellites of THEMIS:

:bounce:

:hi:

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