PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA15178: Magnetic Field Lines Intensifying (Artist's Concept)
 Target Name:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Voyager
 Spacecraft:  Voyager 1
 Product Size:  1280 x 720 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Primary Data Set:  Voyager EDRs
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA15178.tif (2.768 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA15178.jpg (61.26 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Click here for larger version of PIA15178
Figure 1
Click on the image for larger view

This artist's concept shows NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft in a new region at the edge of our solar system where the magnetic field lines generated by our sun are piling up and intensifying. Voyager 1 is in an area scientists are calling the stagnation region, at the outer layer of the heliosphere, or magnetic bubble that the sun blows around itself. Magnetic field lines form a spiral around the solar system because of the rotation of the sun (see PIA15179) and at the edge of the solar system, they form roughly parallel lines. Since the end of 2004, when Voyager 1 passed the termination shock, where the solar wind dramatically slows down and becomes turbulent, the intensity of the magnetic field tripled, as the distance between magnetic field lines decreased by one-third. Since entering the new region in mid-2004, the magnetic field intensity increased twice more as the distance between magnetic field lines decreased again by about half. Scientists believe the field lines are piling up because something outside is pushing back.

One view shows a simple schematic. Another view lays the schematic on an artist's concept of the heliosphere and its outer layer.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit http://www.nasa.gov/voyager.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2011-12-16