Probe to Map

Interstellar Boundary Explorer or the Ibex probe is a small NASA spacecraft (the size of a bus tire) embarks on a two-year mission to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system, a chaotic region in space where the solar wind from the sun clashes with cold gases from interstellar space. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles spewing from the sun at 1 million miles per hour, carves out a protective bubble around the solar system. This bubble is known as the heliosphere shields against most dangerous cosmic radiation that would otherwise interfere with human spaceflight. With a state of the art closed circuit television systems and recordings, observations from Ibex could help confirm whether the heliosphere is shrinking and helping researchers in “unlocking the secrets of this important interaction between the sun and the galaxy”.

Popularity: 12% [?]