Στοιχεία από Cassini αλλάζουν το σχήμα του Ηλιακού Συστήμ

[George Makris]

Από το mail του NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

 

Oct. 15, 2009

 

Cassini Data Help Redraw Shape of Solar System

 

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2337

 

Images from the Ion and Neutral Camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that the heliosphere, the region of the sun's influence, may not have the comet-like shape predicted by existing models. In a paper published Oct. 15 in Science Express, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory present a new view of the heliosphere, and the forces that shape it.

 

"These images have revolutionized what we thought we knew for the past 50 years; the sun travels through the galaxy not like a comet but more like a big, round bubble," said Stamatios Krimigis of the Applied Physics Lab, in Laurel, Md., principal investigator for Cassini's Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument which carries the Ion and Neutral Camera. "It's amazing how a single new observation can change an entire concept that most scientists had taken as true for nearly fifty years."