NASA-Voyager
Makes an Interstellar Discovery
December
23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar
cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th
issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager
spacecraft have solved the mystery.
"Using data from Voyager, we have discovered
a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains
lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator
from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds
the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing
puzzle of how it can exist at all."
Right:
Voyager flies through the outer bounds of the heliosphere
en route to interstellar space. A strong magnetic field reported
by Opher et al in the Dec. 24, 2009, issue of Nature is delineated
in yellow. Image copyright 2009, The American Museum of Natural
History. [larger image]
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Voyages Through the Heliosphere
July
2, 2008: The twin Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 to
travel to and
explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have made many
intriguing discoveries, including a possible ocean of liquid
water on one of Jupiter's moons. On page 71, long-time Voyager
project scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues detail Voyager
2's latest finding - that the 'bubble' formed around the
Solar System by supersonic solar wind is asymmetrical and
dynamic. Stone tells Nature that the Voyager crafts will
deliver more 'firsts' when they reach interstellar space.
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