Voyager Enters Final Frontier Of Solar System Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://planetary.org/news/2005/voyager-upd...ation_0524.html

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object in space, has crossed the termination shock, the last major threshold in the solar system, team members announced today at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0603318

From: Merav Opher [view email]

Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:30:59 GMT (539kb)

Effects of a Local Interstellar Magnetic Field on Voyager 1 and 2 Observations

Authors: Merav Opher, Edward C. Stone, Paulett C. Liewer

Comments: 12 pages, 5 figures

Journal-ref: Astrophysical Journal Letters v.640, 71, 2006

We show that that an interstellar magnetic field can produce a north/south asymmetry in solar wind termination shock. Using Voyager 1 and 2 measurements, we suggest that the angle $\alpha$ between the interstellar wind velocity and magnetic field is $30^{\circ} < \alpha < 60^{\circ}$. The distortion of the shock is such that termination shock particles could stream outward along the spiral interplanetary magnetic field connecting Voyager 1 to the shock when the spacecraft was within $\sim 2~AU$ of the shock. The shock distortion is larger in the southern hemisphere, and Voyager 2 could be connected to the shock when it is within $\sim 5~AU$ of the shock, but with particles from the shock streaming inward along the field. Tighter constraints on the interstellar magnetic field should be possible when Voyager 2 crosses the shock in the next several years.

http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603318