Voyager 2 Shows Solar System Is "Dented" 173
Selikoff writes "NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has found that our solar system is not round but is 'dented' by the local interstellar magnetic field, space experts said on Monday. The data were gathered by the craft on its 30-year journey when it crossed into a region called the 'termination shock.' The data showed that the southern hemisphere of the solar system's heliosphere is being pushed in. Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to enter this region of the solar system, behind Voyager 1, which reached the northern region of the heliosheath in December 2004."
Shape? (Score:4, Interesting)
I, for one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shape? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shape? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well the Sun has an innate shape. It is mostly a sphere, flattened a little bit by rotation. Other factors such as magnetic fields will play a part.
The solar wind is really the outer part of the sun, so in one sense we are embedded in the sun, and it flows around our planet. It has long been expected that the solar wind would meet the interstellar medium at some sort of bow shock on the upstream side with a tail of sorts on the downstream side.
This article suggests that magnetic fields which exist between stars also affect the shape of the boundary between the solar wind and whatever is outside it. Instruments on the Voyager spacecraft tell us which medium it is in at any point in time.
Its not really hostile (Score:5, Interesting)
If I ever do the transhuman thing and get turned into software, The Oort cloud is where I would want to be for serious durability.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shape? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How does it stand the thermal shock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:human defined? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its not really hostile (Score:1, Interesting)
More about the 1802 here [wikipedia.org] for your daily dose of geek history.