First Images Of Solar System's Invisible Frontier
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - 13:14
in Astronomy & Space
An instrument aboard NASA's STEREO spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year, allowing UC Berkeley scientists to map for the first time the energized particles in the region where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium. The region, at about 100 AU, is invisible to other telescopes, but can be mapped by detecting energetic neutral atoms, largely hydrogen.