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Global Observations of the Interstellar Interaction from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX)
D. J. McComas,1,2,*F. Allegrini,1,2P. Bochsler,3M. Bzowski,4E. R. Christian,5G. B. Crew,6R. DeMajistre,7H. Fahr,8H. Fichtner,9P. C. Frisch,10H. O. Funsten,11S. A. Fuselier,12G. Gloeckler,13M. Gruntman,14J. Heerikhuisen,15V. Izmodenov,16,17,18P. Janzen,19P. Knappenberger,20S. Krimigis,7,21H. Kucharek,22M. Lee,22G. Livadiotis,1S. Livi,1,2R. J. MacDowall,5D. Mitchell,7E. Möbius,22T. Moore,5N. V. Pogorelov,15D. Reisenfeld,19E. Roelof,7L. Saul,3N. A. Schwadron,23P. W. Valek,1,2R. Vanderspek,6P. Wurz,3G. P. Zank15
The Sun moves through the local interstellar medium, continuouslyemitting ionized, supersonic solar wind plasma and carving outa cavity in interstellar space called the heliosphere. The recentlylaunched Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft hascompleted its first all-sky maps of the interstellar interactionat the edge of the heliosphere by imaging energetic neutralatoms (ENAs) emanating from this region. We found a bright ribbonof ENA emission, unpredicted by prior models or theories, thatmay be ordered by the local interstellar magnetic field interactingwith the heliosphere. This ribbon is superposed on globallydistributed flux variations ordered by both the solar wind structureand the direction of motion through the interstellar medium.Our results indicate that the external galactic environmentstrongly imprints the heliosphere.
1 Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78228, USA. 2 University of Texas, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA. 3 Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland. 4 Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland. 5 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. 6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 7 Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD 20723, USA. 8 University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany. 9 Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany. 10 University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. 11 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. 12 Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. 13 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. 14 University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. 15 University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA. 16 Moscow State University, 119899 Moscow, Russia. 17 Space Research Institute (IKI), Russian Academy of Sciences, 117997 Moscow, Russia. 18 Institute for Problems in Mechanics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117526 Moscow, Russia. 19 University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA. 20 Adler Planetarium, Chicago, IL 60605, USA. 21 Office for Space Research and Technology, Academy of Athens, 106 79 Athens, Greece. 22 Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. 23 Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dmccomas{at}swri.org
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