It turns out that on the border of the solar system and deep space There is a kind of customs. There are magnetic field lines, generated by the sun and present in the solar wind, undergo reconnection with magnetic field lines interstellar medium. It became known thanks to the information received from the Voyager 1 probe. 
Photos from open sources The idea of the “Big Tour” first appeared in the late 60s – even before the launch of the Apollo to the Moon and spacecraft “Pioneer” to Jupiter. Development of this The NASA project began back in 1969, but before the start of the Voyagers, long distance space runners, there were eight long years. The first was launched to Jupiter Voyager 2 from the cosmodrome Space Center. Kennedy on August 20, 1977, his launch vehicle “Titan 3 E-Centaurus” had a launch mass of 700 tons! The second start was made by Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977, space twin of Voyager 2. Both spacecraft headed to Jupiter, Voyager-1 – on a shorter and more demanding high cost track. According to calculations, Voyager 1 reached March 5, 1979 of the planet Jupiter, ahead of the Voyager 2. Second Voyager flew to the giant planet on July 9, 1979. Both devices were created at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Wonderful the idea of exploring giant planets was born into an exceptionally successful point in time: in the late seventies – early eighties of the twentieth centuries, they are all well located in a relatively narrow sector The solar system and lined up in the “parade of planets.” Such situation observed earlier, namely 180 years before the launch of Voyagers! goal long-term mission consisted in a successive flight around each from the Voyagers of several planets. The use of gravitational maneuvers made possible the flight of the spacecraft from one planet to another in relatively short time. Without such a maneuver, a flight to Neptune, would last 20 years longer and would require unimaginable consumption fuel. The coincidence of real circumstances and brilliant ideas successful: currently a couple of Voyager probes are coming their trajectories in the solar system for 35 years. They move faster and faster; gradually accelerating, these devices have become the most distant and fast moving man-made space objects. Right now they are ready to go into outer space, for true limits of the solar system. Having passed the heliopause, the border The solar system, “travelers” will continue to fly in the interstellar space. Voyager 1 is close to this limit – soon he finally go beyond the heliosphere, where the influence is noticeable solar wind, and will continue to move in the interstellar medium. 3December 2012 scientists working with Voyager 1 data presented the results of the current work of the probes, which for the first time allows us – albeit virtually – to cross so remote from us the boundary of the solar system. First granted to humanity the opportunity to consider everything that happens in this mysterious area. Voyager 1 has long passed the boundary of the shock wave, which formed during the stellar wind flow around the solar system, in resulting in the formation of the heliosphere – an area in which the main is the Sun, filling the heliospheric cavity with streams solar wind. The boundary of interstellar space and the heliosphere called heliopause – in this area solar wind particles slow down, their movement becomes more chaotic. This is the result. collisions of streams of stellar and solar winds. June 2010 years when Voyager 1 retired 17 billion kilometers from The sun, the speed of the solar wind dropped to almost zero. 28 July 2012, Voyager 1 entered a new area of space, far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. By analyzing the data, scientists have identified many unexpected features. It turned out that in this area lines of force of the magnetic field generated by the Sun and present in the solar wind, undergoes reconnection with magnetic field lines of the interstellar medium. it reconnection at the very edge of the solar system allows particles of the solar wind go into interstellar space, and stellar wind – go inside the solar system. Customs in the reconnection area gives them the go-ahead for border crossing in heliopause area! Analogue of expressway, magnetic highway (magnetic highway) is not really constant structure, but very variable, as evidenced by the data Voyager 1. Only from August 25, as you move forward Voyager 1, the work of the “highway” has stabilized completely. By force the lines of the reconnection region fly particles from the interstellar outer space. This phenomenon can be interpreted as hierarchy of embedded systems when the Earth’s magnetosphere is washed solar wind, and the formation of a shock wave and transition layer at the boundary of the magnetosphere, even more powerful are the magnetospheres of giant planets where the same processes. The heliosphere is orders of magnitude larger in scale, but the flow around the stellar wind of her obstacles demonstrates a reconnection in that same quality, that is, when the particles accept the game imposed electromagnetic fields from different sources in the space environment. Tatyana Valchuk
NASA Time Sun Solar System Jupiter
