NASA findings reveal solar system's tail

The lobes of the clover shape do not line up with the solar system perfectly, the scientists found. A slightly rotated shape hints that the particles in the tail are tugged by the magnetic fields from the local galaxy as they move further away from the sun.

Continued observations, hopefully with IBEX, should be able to track how the tail shape shifts during the sun's 11-year activity cycle, which is reaching its maximum this year, McComas said.
 
"We should be able to see the effects of the changing solar wind," he added during today's briefing.

The $169 million IBEX spacecraft, launched in 2008, was built for an initial two-year mission, which has since been extended.  Early on in its mission, IBEX detected ENAs flowing toward the sun in an unexpected pattern: They were significantly enhanced in a mysterious ribbon on the edge of the solar system that scientists now think is a reflection of the solar wind, shot back toward the sun by a strong galactic magnetic field.

IBEX has made several other important discoveries throughout its mission. In 2010, the spacecraft looked back toward Earth and got the first-ever glimpse of the solar wind crashing into the planet's magnetosphere. Last year, NASA announced that the spacecraft made its first detection of matter from outside the solar system, finding alien particles of hydrogen, oxygen and neon in the interstellar wind.

The new findings are detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

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• Photos: NASA's IBEX Probes Solar System's Edge
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• Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Solar System?

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