Article Image

IPFS News Link • Space Travel and Exploration

Voyager 2 probe moves into interstellar space

• https://www.cbsnews.com

Voyager 2 moved past the boundary of the heliosphere, the protective bubble defined by the sun's magnetic field and electrically charged solar wind, on Nov. 5. The transition was marked by a sharp decline in the number of charged particles detected by the spacecraft's plasma science experiment, or PLS.

The instrument has not detected any signs of the solar wind since then.

Three other instruments measured corresponding changes in cosmic rays, low-energy particles and magnetic field strength. At Voyager 2's enormous distance from the sun, it took 16-and-a-half hours for the data to make its way back to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Voyager 1 crossed the boundary of the heliosphere, a transition zone known as the heliopause, in 2012. But Voyager 1's plasma detector stopped working in 1980, and the new data from Voyager 2 provides fresh insights into the nature of the boundary between interstellar space and the sun's magnetic and electrical influence.