Winds of Change at the Edge of the Solar System

As the venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft hurtles ever outward, breaking through the very borders of our solar system at staggering speeds upwards of 35,000 mph, it’s sending back information about the curious region of space where the Sun’s outward flow of energetic particles meets the more intense cosmic radiation beyond — a boundary called the heliosheath.Voyager 1 has been traveling through this region for the past seven years, all the while its instruments registering gradually increasing levels of cosmic ray particles. But recently the levels have been jumping up and down, indicating something new is going on… perhaps Voyager 1 is finally busting through the breakers of our Sun’s cosmic bay into the open ocean of interstellar space? (...)Read the rest of Winds of Change at the Edge of the Solar System (381 words)© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: cosmic particles, heliosheath, heliosphere, interstellar space, Solar System, Voyager Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh