Re:Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth
by emchammer on Thursday December 14, 2023 @09:52PM
(#38650624)
Why don't particles from surrounding interstellar medium show up in the graph as matching the pressure of the solar wind?
Re:Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth
by dotnet00 on Thursday December 14, 2023 @09:58PM
(#38650664)
Presumably simply because there isn't as much density. The interstellar medium particles must be less dense but more energetic, thus producing the pressure that causes the heliosphere to be restricted.
Re:Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth
by pdonis on Thursday December 14, 2023 @11:10PM
(#38650903)
As I understand it, the much smaller number of particles hitting Voyager now are the interstellar medium. The rate of particles hitting Voyager is not a measure of the pressure of the ambient plasma.
Re:Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth
by fnordpiglet on Thursday December 14, 2023 @09:18PM
(#38650387)
Correct:
The heliopause is the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium; where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the stellar winds of the surrounding stars. This is the boundary where the interstellar medium and solar wind pressures balance. The crossing of the heliopause should be signaled by a sharp drop in the temperature of solar wind-charged particles,[30] a change in the direction of the magnetic field, and an increase in the number of galactic cosmic rays.[34]
This is not correct. The particles are not in orbit about the Sun, they're coming from the Sun--they're the solar wind. The heliopause is where the solar wind particles are stopped by the pressure of the surrounding interstellar medium. When Voyager passed that point (the heliopause), the number of particles hitting it dropped drastically.