Reclusland

This is really exciting, seems to line up a lot of my thoughts on space, magnetism, and the heliosphere (check here, here, and the pictures here for a vague sort of explanation)

• In a discovery that took astronomers by surprise, the first full-sky map of the solar system‘s edge—more than 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away—has revealed a bright “ribbon” of atoms called ENAs.

• The solar system is surrounded by a protective “bubble” called the heliosphere. The narrow ribbon snakes along this bubble’s inner wall

• Astronomers aren’t yet sure how the ribbon formed, but it’s possible that the ribbon could be a result of pressure exerted on the heliosphere by our home galaxy‘s magnetic field.

• ENAs are created at the outer edges of the heliosphere, which is formed by solar wind—charged particles streaming rapidly outward in all directions from the sun. Some gases from outside the heliosphere are constantly leaking in, and when the fast-moving solar wind meets these slow-moving gases, ENAs are born.

• The ENA ribbon’s existence suggests the atoms are produced in higher densities in some parts of the outer heliosphere than others, McComas said, although scientists aren’t yet sure why that would be the case.  One idea is that, wherever the Milky Way’s magnetic field presses on the heliosphere, more ENAs are created.  “Exactly where the [galaxy's] magnetic field is most wrapped around the outer boundary of the heliosphere, that’s where the ribbon runs,” McComas said.  “That could be an unbelievably remarkable coincidence, or it could be a fabulous clue that somehow this external magnetic field is actually imprinting onto our heliosphere through some process that we don’t yet understand.”