Solar system embroiled in an interstellar tempest

• Autores: Lisa Grossman
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2934, 2013, pág. 15
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • People have known since the 1970S that the solar system is moving through a cloud of interstellar gas out on the edge of the Milky Way. That cloud is extremely large and diffuse. Still, the relative motions of the sun and the cloud create an apparent wind of particles. As chargeless helium atoms from this wind enter the solar system, their trajectories are bent by the sun's gravity, creating a cone of helium downwind of the sun. But NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, launched in 2009, found something odd: the cone has shifted by about 6 degrees. Priscilla Frisch and colleagues gathered historical data from several other spacecraft and found a definite change in the wind's direction over the past 40 years.