Earth  Sun  ID: 4087

IBEX Heliotail Observations

The IBEX (Interstellar Boundary EXplorer) continues to collect data on the flux of neutral atoms from the boundary of the solar wind with the interstellar medium.

Starting with the IBEX satellite in orbit around the Earth, we zoom out to beyond the orbit of Neptune, illustrating the direction of the Sun relative to the local stars (red arrow) and relative to the local interstellar medium (violet arrow). These directions are different because the local interstellar medium (mostly gas and dust) move relative to the local stars.

The boundaries of the termination shock (red ellipsoidal surface) and heliopause (green) created by the interaction of the solar wind with the interstellar medium is displayed. The camera rotates to a view 'nose on' with the heliopause, and a sphere is faded in representing the region where the neutral atoms detected by IBEX originate. The sphere around the Sun is 'unwrapped' to reproject the IBEX data into an approximately Aitoff projection.

 

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Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Producer
Nathan Schwadron (University of New Hampshire): Scientist
Dave McComas (SwRI): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4087

Mission:
IBEX

Data Used:
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Heliosphere
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Particles >> Energetic Particles
SVS >> Heliopause
SVS >> IBEX
NASA Science >> Earth
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> Heliotail
SVS >> Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENA)
SVS >> Neutral Atom Imaging

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0