Interstellar space is the space'between the stars.'
But that doesn't mean that'all space is interstellar.'
It's a bit more complicated than that.
At the center of the solar system
is our very own star, the Sun,
that has eight planets orbiting around it, including our own.'
And the Sun is also constantly spewing out a stream of
high-energy particles, which we call the solar wind
This wind forms a giant bubble around our entire solar system.
Other stars have similar shells around them.'
Interstellar space begins at the edge of those star bubbles,'
which are much bigger than these bubbles.'
Interstellar space is hot and cold at the same time.''
The particles are moving really fast.'
Fast-moving particles means high temperatures.'
But get this - you can still freeze to death.'
The particles are so spread out that they're not very good
at transferring heat to your body.'
Inside the solar system, all of the wind comes from the Sun
And the Sun's bubble actually blocks out the wind from other stars.
But out in interstellar space, there's wind blowing from many different stars
and it all swirls together.'
It's a glorious mix of particles, energy and magnetic fields -'
totally unlike the kind of environment we experience on Earth.'
In the 1970s, NASA launched two space probes that are now'
speeding through interstellar space,
beyond the bubble of our solar system.'
After a tour of our neighbor planets,'
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are now the first human-made
objects on an interstellar adventure.'
Another out-of-this-world thing about interstellar space
is that each of the Voyagers is carrying a Golden Record on its journey,
with songs, sounds and greetings from our home on planet Earth.'
So maybe one day they'll tell the story of our world to extraterrestrials.'
It's pretty cool that we humans now have a message in a bottle
all the way out there in interstellar space.'
Thanks for joining us with 5 Things About Interstellar Space!
And tune in to NASA Science Live for more about interstellar space.'