• more about #heliosphere more comments →
    92BuickLeSabre: What can you expect the sun to do when we keep running away, coming back, running away, coming back. We want to be independent, but we also want some... more »
  • #cosmicrays

    Why The Sun Is A Delinquent Parent

    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 »
  • #ibex

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

    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 »
  • #spaceporn

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

    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 »