First View Of the Solar System’s Tail

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA’s IBEX Provides First View Of the Solar System’s Tail

It has long been assumed that our solar system, like a comet, has a tail. Just as any object moving through another medium – for example, a meteor traveling through Earth’s atmosphere – causes the particles to form a stream trailing off behind it. But the tail of our solar bubble, called the heliosphere, has never actually been observed, until now.

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has mapped the boundaries of the tail of the heliosphere, something that has never before been possible. Scientists describe this tail, called the heliotail, in detail in a paper published on July 10, 2013, in The Astrophysical Journal. By combining observations from the first three years of IBEX imagery, the team mapped out a tail that shows a combination of fast and slow moving particles. There are two lobes of slower particles on the sides, faster particles above and below, with the entire structure twisted, as it experiences the pushing and pulling of magnetic fields outside the solar system.

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Edited February 13, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf
corrected tags

[Waspie_Dwarf]

IBEX Maps Solar System's Tail

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, recently mapped the boundaries of the solar system's tail, called the heliotail. By combining observations from the first three years of IBEX imagery, scientists have mapped out a tail that shows a combination of fast and slow moving particles. The entire structure twisted, because it experiences the pushing and pulling of magnetic fields outside the solar system.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Source: NASA Goddard - Multimedia

[Jodie.Lynne]

Amazing! And so logical when one hears it, although I must admit that I never thought that the Solar system would have a tail.