Video: What space probes have discovered outside the solar system
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
In November 2018, after a 41-year voyage, Voyager 2 crossed the boundary beyond which the Sun's influence ends and entered interstellar space. But the mission of the little probe has not yet been completed - it continues to make amazing discoveries.
In 2020, Voyager 2 discovered something amazing: space density increases with distance from the Sun.
Similar indicators were transmitted to Earth by Voyager 1, which entered interstellar space in 2012. The data showed that the increase in density could be a feature of the interstellar medium.
The solar system has several boundaries, one of which, called the heliopause, is determined by the solar wind, or rather by its significant weakening. The space inside the heliopause is the heliosphere, and the space outside is the interstellar medium. But the heliosphere is not round. It looks more like an oval, in which the solar system is at the leading edge, and a kind of tail stretches behind it.
Both Voyagers crossed the heliopause at the leading edge, but within a difference of 67 degrees in heliographic latitude and 43 degrees in longitude.
Interstellar space is usually considered a vacuum, but this is not entirely true. The density of matter is extremely low, but it still exists. In the solar system, the solar wind has an average density of protons and electrons from 3 to 10 particles per cubic centimeter, but it is lower the further from the Sun.
The average concentration of electrons in the Milky Way's interstellar space is estimated to be about 0.037 particles per cubic centimeter. And the plasma density in the outer heliosphere reaches about 0.002 electrons per cubic centimeter. When the Voyager probes crossed the heliopause, their instruments recorded the electron density of the plasma through plasma oscillations.
Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause on August 25, 2012 at a distance of 121.6 astronomical units from the Earth (this is 121.6 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun - about 18.1 billion km). When he first measured the plasma oscillations after crossing the heliopause on October 23, 2013 at a distance of 122.6 astronomical units (18.3 billion km), he found the plasma density at 0.055 electrons per cubic centimeter.
Having flown another 20 astronomical units (2.9 billion kilometers), Voyager 1 reported an increase in the density of interstellar space to 0.13 electrons per cubic centimeter.
Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause on November 5, 2018 at a distance of 119 astronomical units (17.8 billion kilometers. On January 30, 2019, it measured plasma oscillations at a distance of 119.7 astronomical units (17.9 billion kilometers), finding that the density plasma is 0.039 electrons per cubic centimeter.
In June 2019, Voyager 2's Devices showed a sharp increase in density to about 12 electrons per cubic centimeter at a distance of 124.2 AU (18.5 billion kilometers).
What caused the increase in the density of space? One theory is that the lines of force of the interstellar magnetic field become stronger with distance from the heliopause. This can cause electromagnetic ion cyclotron instability. Voyager 2 did detect an increase in the magnetic field after crossing the heliopause.
Another theory is that material carried away by the interstellar wind should slow down in the heliopause, forming a kind of plug, as evidenced by the weak ultraviolet glow detected by the New Horizons probe in 2018, caused by the accumulation of neutral hydrogen in the heliopause.
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