The IBEX probe was only launched in October 2008, but has already has produced stunning results, scientists said.
Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON DC: A NASA probe exploring the outer edges of the Solar System has helped scientists create the first map of this little-understood region of space 16 billion kilometres from Earth.
Data from the U.S. space agency's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft is helping researchers explore the boundary between our Sun and the rest of the galaxy by collecting high-speed particles and ions.
The IBEX probe is the latest in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers space missions, and was launched in October 2008, but has already has produced stunning results, scientists said.
Bright ribbon
"The IBEX results are truly remarkable, with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region," said IBEX principal investigator David McComas.
"We expected to see small, gradual spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some 10 billion miles away," said McComas, who is also assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
"IBEX is showing us a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky." That bright narrow ribbon that snakes through the sky "remained completely undetected until now," McComas said.
Interstellar boundary
NASA said that a closer look at segments of the ribbon revealed fine structures, which suggests that ion densities may be significantly enhanced in highly localised regions at the interstellar boundary.
Scientists long have been keen to investigate the boundary between the Solar System and the rest of our galaxy.
They are particularly eager to learn more about the dust and gas that fills the area between the stars, referred to as interstellar medium and how this interacts with the solar wind; charged particles continuously travelling at supersonic speeds away from the Sun in all directions.
They also hope to gain greater understanding of the heliosphere - described by NASA as a "giant bubble" created by the solar wind, that provides a layer of protection against high-energy cosmic rays - and in which the Earth and other planets reside.
IBEX uses two novel cameras to image and map the heliosphere's global interaction, providing detailed information.
IBEX also is giving scientists greater insight into our cosmos by mapping the flow of interstellar neutral gas which blows through our Solar System.
The two Voyager spacecraft have provided data about more localised parts of the interstellar boundary region in the past, but NASA officials said IBEX is helping fill in the "big picture" of what the space boundary looks like.
NASA held a press conference in Washington on Thursday to discuss their findings.
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