NASA satellite to scan solar system's outer limits

NASA satellite to scan solar system's outer limits

NASA is going to launch satellite that will study in distant regions where the outermost reaches of our solar system collide with the cold expanse of interstellar space. The solar wind, a stream of electrically conducting gas continuously moving outward from the sun at 1 million mph, blows against this interstellar material and forms a humongous protective bubble around the solar system. These boundaries really protect from the fairly harsh galactic environment.

NASA said IBEX will map the boundary region, which is important because it shields the solar system from dangerous galactic cosmic rays. IBEX is designed to detect atoms that are heated and thrown off from the boundary.

NASA's two unmanned Voyager probes were the first to begin to explore this region, which begins about three times further from the sun than the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto. Voyager 1 passed the inner boundary in 2004 and Voyager 2 crossed over last year.