and they are still going, lil energizer bunnies they are

[Guest guest]

Space probes show solar system dented, not round

By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)

From Associated Press

July 02, 2008 11:00 AM EST

WASHINGTON - When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar

system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it

inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal.

 

Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar

system - called the heliosheath where the solar wind slows abruptly - paint a

picture that is not the simple circle that astronomers long thought, according

to several studies published Thursday in the journal Nature. Surprised

astronomers said they will have to change their models for what the solar system

looks like.

 

In 1977, NASA launched two space probes on missions beyond the solar system.

Voyager 1 went north and Voyager 2 went south. What startled astronomers is that

when the two of them hit the heliosheath they did so at different distances from

the sun.

 

Voyager 2 hit the southern edge of the solar system nearly 1 billion miles

closer to the sun than Voyager 1 did to the north. Voyager 2 hit the edge at 7.8

billion miles from the sun.

 

" We used to assume that it's all symmetric and simple, " said Leonard Burlaga, an

astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. " It's

literally like a hand pushing. "

 

That push is from the magnetic field that lies between star systems in the Milky

Way. The magnetic field hits the solar system at a different angle on the south

than on the north, probably because of interstellar turbulence from star

explosions, said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone.

 

Both spacecraft still have several more years before they completely exit the

solar system and continue deeper into the space between stars, said Stone,

former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

 

---

 

On the Net:

 

Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature

 

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not

be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first

thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.