Voyager crossing superhighway to solar system exit

[Craig]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/346856/description/Voyager_crossing_superhighway_to_solar_system_exit_

 

On its way out of the solar system, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has encountered a “magnetic highway†of charged particles — a hint that the spacecraft may not have far to go before reaching the brink of interstellar space.

 

This so-called highway lies where the sun’s magnetic field and the interstellar magnetic field meet. Particles blown outward by the solar wind are speeding in one direction, while particles from cosmic rays generated outside the solar system are racing inward.

 

“This was a major unexpected result,†Voyager scientist Stamatios Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory said in a December 3 teleconference hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Voyager has surprised us.â€