Earth is like our
bedroom,
cozy and safe.
But it’s inside a
much bigger house
that helps make our
planet habitable.
That house is our heliosphere,
a giant, protective
bubble created by the Sun.
It stretches beyond the planets
and forms a boundary
that protects our solar system
from deep space.
So, what does this
“house” look like?
Well, we don’t actually know!
The heliosphere is so huge
that we can’t
just step outside
and take a photo
of the whole thing.
But NASA has found ways
to map out its boundaries.
First, two spacecraft
have actually passed
through its walls
and sent back measurements
from outside.
Voyager 1
passed through in 2012.
And Voyager 2 made its own
crossing six years later.
But they only found
the boundary
in two specific places,
and it took more than 35
years of space travel
to get there!
Luckily, there are other ways
to study
the heliosphere from inside.
NASA’s IMAP
will use a technique
kind of like listening
for “echoes” that bounce off
our heliosphere’s
exterior walls.
Instead of sound waves,
these “echoes” are particles
that ricochet
off of the heliosphere’s
edges.
By “listening” carefully,
scientists can map
the structure
of our “house” from
the inside,
giving us a “blueprint” of our
solar system’s outer shell.
Next time:
How our
heliosphere protects us
from the dangers
of deep space,
and what happens
when it fails.