Discoveries of Material from Beyond Solar System

[PPI Karl]

NASA to Discuss Discoveries of Material from Beyond Solar System Today
SPACE.com Staff
Date: 31 January 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET

Scientists will announce new findings about material from beyond the solar system at a NASA press conference today (Jan. 31).

The researchers will also discuss discoveries about the boundary region that separates our solar system from interstellar space and protects us from fast-moving particles called galactic cosmic rays, researchers said.

The results were obtained after analyzing data gathered by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, which is studying the edge of the solar system from an orbit about 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) above Earth. [Images from the IBEX Mission]

The briefing will take place at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. The participants are:

• David McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio
• Priscilla Frisch, senior scientist at the University of Chicago
• Eberhard M?bius, professor at the University of New Hampshire and currently visiting professor at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
• Seth Redfield, assistant professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

VIDEO

NASA launched the coffee-table-sized IBEX probe in October 2008 to map out the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space. The $169 million spacecraft was built for an initial two-year mission.

So far, IBEX has made some surprising discoveries. In 2009, for example, the spacecraft detected a mysterious ribbon on the edge of the solar system that scientists now think is a reflection of the solar wind ? the million-miles-per-hour stream of charged particles from the sun.

And in 2010, researchers announced that IBEX had gotten the first-ever look at the solar wind crashing headlong into Earth's magnetosphere.

[PPI Karl]

New "Alien" Particles Have Entered Our Solar System
January 31, 2012
   
Researchers have measured neutral "alien" particles that have entered our solar system from interstellar space.

The team used NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft to find the neutral particles, which make up about half the material outside the heliosphere.

The heliosphere is the bubble in which our Sun and planets reside and is formed by the interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium.

Electrically charged particles cannot penetrate the boundary between these two bodies, but neutral particles are able to flow freely through it.

Ulysses is the only other spacecraft that has been able to directly detect these neutral particles.

IBEX's low-energy energetic neutral atom camera has measured interstellar neutral particles that Ulysses was unable to detect.

The spacecraft's data reveals that interstellar neutrals enter the heliosphere at a speed of about 52,000 miles per hour.

IBEX discovered that the solar wind is about 7,000 miles per hour slower than previously thought, which indicates that our solar system is in the "local interstellar cloud."

The scientists have performed the first detailed analyses of samples of captured interstellar neutral atoms.  The team said the findings are important because the interstellar gas surrounding us can affect the strength of the Sun's heliosphere.

The astronomers say that we will transition into a different region at any time within a few thousand years where conditions will change and affect the heliosphere's protective capability for better or for worse.

As the solar system travels around the Milky Way through cosmic time, the nature of the heliosphere has likely had implications on the evolution of life on Earth, as varying levels of radiation spurred genetic mutations, and extinctions.

A deeper understanding of our heliosphere could help scientists explore astrospheres that surround other stars through the Milky Way.

IBEX found neutral atoms in 2009 and 2010, but the new discovery is the most complete glimpse of the material.

"We've directly measured four separate types of atoms from interstellar space and the composition just doesn't match up with what we see in the solar system," Eric Christian, mission scientist for IBEX at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, said in a press release. "IBEX's observations shed a whole new light on the mysterious zone where the solar system ends and interstellar space begins."

These new measurements help give clues about how and where our solar system formed, the forces that physically shape our solar system, and even the history of other stars in the Milky Way.

The scientists wrote in The Astrophysical Journal that for every 20 neon atoms in the galactic wind, there are 74 oxygen atoms.

However, in our own solar system, for every 20 neon atoms there are 111 oxygen atoms.  This translates to more oxygen in any given part of the solar system than in the local interstellar space.

"Our solar system is different than the space right outside it and that suggests two possibilities," David McComas, the principal investigator for IBEX at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said in a statement. "Either the solar system evolved in a separate, more oxygen-rich part of the galaxy than where we currently reside or a great deal of critical, life-giving oxygen lies trapped in interstellar dust grains or ices, unable to move freely throughout space."

Scientists are able to find out information about how our solar system interacts with the rest of space by studying the galactic winds.

IBEX's main goal is to study the helios health, which is the boundary of the solar system's heliosphere.

"Measuring the pressure on our heliosphere from the material in the galaxy and from the magnetic fields out there, will help determine the size and shape of our solar system as it travels through the galaxy," Christian said in a press release.

The new results also hold information about the history of the material in the universe.  Knowing the amounts of elements in space can help map out how the galaxy evolved and changed over time.

"This set of papers provide many of the first direct measurements of the interstellar medium around us," McComas said in a press release. "We've been trying to understand our galaxy for a long time, and with all of these observations together, we are taking a major step forward in knowing what the local part of the galaxy is like."

[PPI Tracy]

Have you seen the glue?  I need to put my head back together.  It just exploded.

[PPI Tim]

It is the start of the end. OR it is a signal from a alien planet.

[PPI Debra]

This is all exciting. It's hard to imagine the ramifications of it all. I need more education in physics, I think.