Big Pic: The Solar System Has A Tail

Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - 16:30 in Astronomy & Space

Our Solar System's Tail An illustration of what our solar system's tail looks like, according to new observations from IBEX. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center We thought there was something back there, but we hadn't seen it till now. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has caught a glimpse of something we've long suspected was there, but could never actually observe: Our tail. Yep, our solar system definitely has one, and it seems to take the shape of multiple lobes, like a 3-D four-leaf clover, made of a combination of fast and slow-moving particles that trail behind us in the solar wind of the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles around the solar system. We've managed to spot tails around other stars before, like these: The particles that make up the heliotail don't shine, though, so they have been difficult to image. IBEX used energetic neutral atom imaging--measuring the neutral particles that result from collisions...

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