NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX mission, has helped researchers learn something new about the heliosphere – the magnetic bubble created by the Sun that we live in. It turns out, the heliosphere has ripples! These ripples also change – likely due to influences from the Sun itself. T
This bubble is known as the heliosphere, and it was discovered in the 1950s.
The heliosphere is huge – our best guess is that the boundary lies at least 10 billion miles from Earth!’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX mission, has helped researchers learn something new about it.Scientists are now trying to find out why the heliosphere has this texture and why these ripples change over time.
Scientists think these ripples could be caused by changes in the outward pressure of the solar wind, the constant stream of particles and magnetic fields flowing off the Sun. Since the Sun cycles between periods of high and low activity, the boundary of the heliosphere, called the heliopause, may change and oscillate over time.
According to the researchers, the ripples on the heliopause may be caused by instabilities that evolve over the solar cycle.Reference: “Oblique and rippled heliosphere structures from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer” by Eric J. Zirnstein, Bishwas L. Shrestha, David J. McComas, Maher A. Dayeh, Jacob Heerikhuisen, Daniel B. Reisenfeld, Justyna M. Sokół and Paweł Swaczyna, 10 October 2022,
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