io9: Heliosphere

NASA probe reveals the unexpected "atmosphere" that surrounds our entire solar system

Alasdair Wilkins — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:52:38 PST

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has spent the last four years exploring the very edge of our solar system, where giant magnetic bubbles repel incoming charged particles while neutral ones stream in on their way to the Sun. More »

NASA's Voyager 1 has reached the very fringes of our solar system, and is preparing to leave for good

Robert T. Gonzalez — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:30:00 PST

Voyager 1 has reached the very fringes of our solar system, and is preparing to leave for good" alt="Click here to read NASA's Voyager 1 has reached the very fringes of our solar system, and is preparing to leave for good" src="http://cache.io9.com/assets/images/8/2011/12/small_2e2a34cb3ce969189dceacd27629f641.jpg"/>

When NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1977, its primary mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets in our solar system. On November 16, 1980, the spacecraft captured this photograph of Saturn from a distance of just 5.3-million kilometers. More »

Why The Sun Is A Delinquent Parent

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:30:00 PDT

You already know that the sun can be dangerous because of the harmful effects of UV rays, but were you aware of the problems posed by it failing to protect us from cosmic rays? More »

NASA's IBEX Ready to Measure the Edges of Our Solar System

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:40:00 PDT

A NASA mission to measure and study the mysterious edge of the solar system is underway this week. The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is one of the low-cost "Small Explorers" missions - it can study the termination shock area of our solar system without even leaving Earth's orbit. How will it manage that? By acting as a target for particles that have traveled hundreds of millions of miles. More »

Does the New Shape of the Solar System Prove Vernor Vinge is Right About the Galaxy?

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:00:00 PDT

By now you've probably heard the news about our solar system not quite being the shape that everybody thought. A study in Nature today shows results gathered from the two Voyager space probes launched in the 1970s, which are both nearing the edge of the heliosphere, the region where the solar winds end and deep space begins. Based on data the probes beamed back, it would appear that the heliosphere isn't a sphere — it's more of an egg shape (pictured). And the boundary between heliosphere and deep space is shifting all the time. It sounds very similar to the way scifi author Vernor Vinge describes the Milky Way's galactic sphere in A Fire Upon the Deep. If Vinge is right about what happens when you leave a gravitational sphere for deep space, the Voyager probes are in for an interesting ride. More »