‘Knot’ in ribbon at solar system’s edge ‘unties’
October 1st, 2010 - 2:33 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Oct 01 (ANI): Maps produced by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has revealed that the unusual “knot” in the bright, narrow ribbon of neutral atoms emanating from the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space have “untied”.
Researchers believe the ribbon forms in response to interactions between interstellar space and the heliosphere, the protective bubble in which the Earth and other planets reside. Sensitive neutral atom detectors aboard IBEX produce global maps of this region every six months.
Analyses of the first map, released last fall, suggest the ribbon is somehow ordered by the direction of the local interstellar magnetic field outside the heliosphere, influencing the structure of the heliosphere more than researchers had previously believed. The knot feature seen in the northern portion of the ribbon in the first map stood apart from the rest of the ribbon as the brightest feature at higher energies.
While the second map, released publicly with the just-published paper, shows the large-scale structure of the ribbon to be generally stable within the six-month period, changes are also apparent.
The polar regions of the ribbon display lower emissions and the knot diminishes by as much as a third and appears to “untie” as it spreads out to both lower and higher latitudes.
“What we’re seeing is the knot pull apart as it spreads across a region of the ribbon,” says Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and an assistant vice president at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “To this day the science team can’t agree on exactly what causes the knot or the ribbon, but by comparing different sky maps we find the surprising result that the region is changing over relatively short time periods. Now we have to figure out why.”
As the IBEX spacecraft gathers a wealth of new information about the dynamic interactions at the edge of the solar system — the region of space that shields our solar system from the majority of galactic cosmic ray radiation — the IBEX team continues to study numerous theories about the source of the ribbon and its unusual features.
Research has been published online in the Journal of Geophysical Research. (ANI)
- NASA's IBEX spacecraft reveals space as never seen before - Aug 17, 2010
- Galactic magnetic fields may control boundaries of our solar system - Oct 17, 2009
- NASA spacecraft helps scientists map solar system - Oct 16, 2009
- NASA spacecraft provides first view of our solar system's position in Milky Way - Oct 16, 2009
- Scientists discover "noodle soup" of solar material at space bubble's edge - Oct 16, 2009
- Soon, first all-sky map of the edge of the solar system - Jan 14, 2009
- Scientists explore invisible space around Earth - Dec 15, 2010
- NASA spacecraft detects ultra fast hydrogen coming from Moon - Jun 19, 2009
- NASA spacecraft all set explore the dynamic interactions in outer solar system - Oct 07, 2008
- NASA probe to examine boundary between solar system and intergalactic space - Oct 14, 2008
- NASAs IBEX spacecraft reaches orbit, begins instrument commissioning - Nov 13, 2008
- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft nearing edge of Solar System - Dec 14, 2010
- NASA launches spacecraft to study solar wind - Oct 20, 2008
- Scientists make first direct measurement of lunar backscatter from solar wind - Jul 04, 2009
- NASA satellite to study solar systems outer limits - Oct 18, 2008
Tags: assistant vice president, different sky, dynamic interactions, global maps, heliosphere, higher latitudes, interstellar space, narrow ribbon, neutral atom, neutral atoms, northern portion, period changes, polar regions, principal investigator, protective bubble, scale structure, science team, sky maps, southwest research institute, time periods
