Space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 allowed humanity to become familiar with the solar system. Until the launch of the spacecraft in 1977, we knew practically nothing about most of the planets in our galactic home. As he writes in his book “Blue Dot. The cosmic future of mankind “astronomer and popularizer of science Carl Sagan,” these devices told us about the wonders of other worlds, about the uniqueness and fragility of ours, about births and sunsets. They opened up to us the distant corners of the solar system. It was they who investigated the bodies, which may become the homeland of our distant descendants. ” Today, 43 years later, Voyagers are still roaming space and sending data to Earth about their surroundings – the mysterious, dark interstellar space. As the first man-made objects to leave our solar system, Voyagers are at risk of invading uncharted territory, billions of kilometers from home. No other spacecraft has ever swam so far into the cosmic ocean.
Hidden outside our star’s sphere of influence is a cold, mysterious interstellar space
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If we consider the distance at which our star can no longer hold any bodies in orbits as the limit of the solar system, then the Voyagers will spend tens of thousands of years in it.
Astronomer, astrophysicist, popularizer of science Carl Sagan (“Blue Dot. The Cosmic Future of Mankind”).
What is interstellar space?
Away from the protective embrace of the Sun, the edge of the solar system appears to be a cold, empty and lifeless place. Unsurprisingly, the gaping space between us and nearby stars seemed for a long time a frighteningly vast space of nothingness. Until recently, this was a place where humanity could only look from afar.
Astronomers have given only passing attention to interstellar space, preferring instead to focus telescopes’ attention on the luminous masses of nearby stars, galaxies and nebulae. Meanwhile, both Voyagers are still sending data back to Earth from this strange region that we call interstellar space.
Это интересно: NASA отправило в космос карту, по которой инопланетяне смогут найти путь к Земле
Over the past century, scientists have been building a picture of what the interstellar medium is made of, largely through observations with radio and X-ray telescopes. They found that interstellar space is composed of highly diffuse ionized hydrogen atoms, dust and cosmic rays, punctuated by dense molecular clouds of gas that are believed to be the birthplace of new stars.
But its exact nature directly outside our solar system has been largely a mystery, mainly because the sun, all planets and the Kuiper belt are contained within a giant protective bubble formed by the solar wind known as heliosphere.
Когда Солнце и окружающие его планеты проносятся через галактику, этот пузырь ударяется о межзвездную среду, как невидимый щит, удерживая большинство вредных космических лучей и других материалов.
The size and shape of the heliospheric bubble changes as it passes through different regions of the interstellar medium. The image shows the location of the spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.
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But its life-saving properties also make it difficult to study what lies outside the heliosphere. That is why, according to some scientists, the only way to get an idea of interstellar space is to fly away from the Sun, look back and get an image from outside the heliosphere. But this is not an easy task – compared to the entire Milky Way galaxy, our solar system looks smaller than a grain of rice floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Yet Voyagers are far from the outer edge of the heliosphere.
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The heliosphere and the solar wind
The heliosphere, as scientists have found, is unexpectedly large, which suggests that the interstellar medium in this part of the galaxy is less dense than previously thought. The sun cuts a path through interstellar space like a ship moving through water, creating a “bow wave” and trailing a trail behind it, possibly with tail (or tails) in a comet-like shape. Both Voyagers passed through the “nose” of the heliosphere, and therefore did not provide any information about the tail.
“According to Voyager estimates, the heliopause is about one astronomical unit thick (149,668,992 kilometers, which is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun). It is not really a surface. This is a region with complex processes. And we do not know what is happening there, “- said BBC.com Jamie Rankin, researcher at Princeton University.
Солнечным ветром исследователи называют поток ионизированных частиц, исходящих из солнечной коры (со скоростью 300—1200 км/с) в окружающее космическое пространство. Солнечный ветер – один из основных компонентов межпланетной среды.
So, in the artist’s view, looks like a solar storm that hit Mars.
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And while bursts of solar wind can provide scientists with interesting data about what is happening in interstellar space, they seem to have surprisingly little effect on the overall size and shape of the heliosphere.
Оказывается, то, что происходит вне гелиосферы, имеет гораздо большее значение, чем то, что происходит внутри нее.
The solar wind can increase or decrease over time without significantly affecting the bubble. But if this bubble moves to a region of the galaxy with a denser or less dense interstellar wind, it will begin to shrink or grow. Well, we hope that Voyagers will send data to Earth about their surroundings for a long time, and we will finally learn more about what exactly is happening in this mysterious interstellar space.
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