Latest Heliosphere Stories

NASA's sun-focused STEREO spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year, allowing University of California, Berkeley, scientists to map for the first time the energized particles in the region where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium.Mapping the region by means of neutral, or uncharged, atoms instead of light "heralds a new kind of astronomy using neutral atoms," said Robert Lin, UC Berkeley professor of physics and...

San Francisco, CA. - NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has followed its twin Voyager 1 into the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind runs up against the thin gas between the stars. However, Voyager 2 took a different path, entering this region, called the heliosheath, on August 30, 2007. Because Voyager 2 crossed the heliosheath boundary, called the solar wind termination shock, about 10 billion miles away from Voyager 1 and almost a...

When you flip a light switch to illuminate the pages of your favorite book or reach into your refrigerator for that last piece of key lime pie, you expect the electric current coursing through the outlets to power everything from your lights to your nifty new big-screen television. When the power goes out, it can be more than just an inconvenience. NASA's Solar Shield experiment explores how timely space weather forecasts can help power companies keep the power flowing to the many appliances...

GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA's sun-focused Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, twin spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year. This helped scientists map the energized particles where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium.The two STEREO spacecraft were launched in 2006 into Earth's orbit around the sun to obtain stereo pictures of the sun's surface and measure magnetic fields and ion fluxes associated with solar...

After more than 17 years of pioneering solar science, a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission to study the sun will end on or about July 1.The Ulysses spacecraft has endured for almost four times its expected lifespan. However, the spacecraft will cease operations because of a decline in power produced by its onboard generators. Ulysses forever has changed the way scientists view the sun and its effect on the surrounding space. Mission results and the science legacy it leaves behind...

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, and a national and international team of co-investigators have been selected by NASA to undertake a $750 thousand six-month study to design a new NASA Small Explorer Mission called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). In the recent announcement, NASA selected six missions for study. Two of them will eventually be chosen to move forward to...

SAN FRANCISCO--New observations from the edge of our solar system show what scientists have suspected for several years: The solar system is squashed. The edge of the solar system is roughly where the solar wind runs up against thin gas found between the stars in the rest of the Milky Way. This "wind," actually a thin gas of electrically charged particles, blows outward in all directions from the sun at between 1 million and 2 million mph, forming a bubble called the...

Scientists have discovered that our sun's 'atmosphere' is asymmetric, thanks to two champion spacecraftFor the second time in history, a spacecraft still communicating with Earth has reached the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind smashes into the thin gas between the stars. NASA's Voyager 2 probe crossed the solar-wind "termination shock" on Aug. 30, which is 30 years and 10 days after the spacecraft launched from Cape...

ESA's Science Programme Committee has unanimously approved to continue the operations of the highly successful Ulysses spacecraft until March 2009. This latest extension, for a period of 12 months, is the fourth in the history of the joint NASA/ESA mission.In addition to pursuing its long-term goal of exploring the heliosphere in four dimensions "“ 3 spatial dimensions and time - Ulysses is a key member of the Heliospheric Network, the international fleet of spacecraft presently operating...

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977. They continue to return information from distances more than three times farther away than Pluto."The Voyager mission is a legend in the annals of space exploration. It opened our eyes to the scientific...