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Hey, the solar system has a pretty nice tail. [View all]
That is, a heliotail: First Images of Our Solar System's Tail Revealed
Astronomers have gotten the first-ever peek at our solar system's tail, called the heliotail, finding that it's shaped like a four-leaf clover, NASA scientists announced today (July 10).
The discovery was made using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a coffee table-sized spacecraft that is studying the edge of the solar system.
<snip>
Researchers say the comet-like tail is inflated by the solar wind of particles streaming off the sun, and the four-leaf clover shape is the result of fast solar wind shooting out near the sun's poles and slower wind flowing from near the sun's equator. The finding is based on the first three years of IBEX's measurements of energetic neutral atoms.
In the interstellar boundary region, charged particles from the sun stream outward far beyond the planets toward the gas- and dust-filled space between stars. Collisions between these particles and interstellar material create fast-moving particles with no charge, known as energetic neutral atoms, or ENAs. Some of these particles speed inward toward the sun, where IBEX can detect them from its perch 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) above Earth.
The discovery was made using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a coffee table-sized spacecraft that is studying the edge of the solar system.
<snip>
Researchers say the comet-like tail is inflated by the solar wind of particles streaming off the sun, and the four-leaf clover shape is the result of fast solar wind shooting out near the sun's poles and slower wind flowing from near the sun's equator. The finding is based on the first three years of IBEX's measurements of energetic neutral atoms.
In the interstellar boundary region, charged particles from the sun stream outward far beyond the planets toward the gas- and dust-filled space between stars. Collisions between these particles and interstellar material create fast-moving particles with no charge, known as energetic neutral atoms, or ENAs. Some of these particles speed inward toward the sun, where IBEX can detect them from its perch 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) above Earth.
More discussion on the structure of our heliotail and the story of IBEX at the link.
More images from IBEX are available here.
IBEX Observations of Spectral SlopeCredit: McComas et al. [ApJ, 2013]IBEX observations of spectral slope, where red and yellow indicate lower energy particles and green and blue higher energy ones. The central portion (circle) is looking down the heliotail and shows two lower energy “lobes” on the port and starboard sides and high energy regions at higher northern and southern latitudes.
