NASA IBEX Provides First View of the Solar System’s Tail

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, recently mapped the boundaries of the solar system’s tail, called the heliotail. By combining observations from the first three years of IBEX imagery, scientists have mapped out a tail that shows a combination of fast and slow moving particles. The entire structure twisted, because it experiences the pushing and pulling of magnetic fields outside the solar system.

First images of solar system’s tail revealed

Science Recorder | Rick Docksai | Thursday, July 11, 2013

NASA scientists have created a first-ever map of our solar system’s “tail.” The researchers only now know of the “heliotail,” as they call it, thanks to recently retrieved data from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft. They published a report of their findings in the latest edition of the Astrophysics Journal.

Solar system tail

Read more: http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/first-images-of-solar-systems-tail-revealed/#ixzz2Yjyv4LJw