The Heliopause and the Dark Star
Two decades have passed since the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft passed beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Voyager 1 visitedJupiter and Saturn, a feat repeated by Voyager 2 which then went on to pass by distant Uranus and Neptune (1). The many wonderful imagesthese two craft sent back to the Earth gave humanity a relatively close-up view of the great gas giants for the first time. But these historicmissions did not end with the planetary fly-bys.Beyond the planetary zone lies the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, and then azone of strengthened magnetic field known as the Heliosheath. This boundary encases the entire solar system like an immense, invisibleegg.
Scientists think that this boundary occurs when the solar wind, a momentous outpouring of charged particles blownaway from the Sun, meets interstellar gases at the edge of the Sun's magnetic influence. The solar wind is pushed back here, creating a bow-shock. The exact location of this magnetic field edge is unknown, and probably varies anyway. Itseems as though the Voyager spacecraft may be passing into this area, and the effect it has on them will teach scientistsmuch about the Heliopause boundary. Preliminary findings also support a quite different claim made in my
forthcoming book, "The Dark Star". As we shall see, the Heliopause may play a crucial role in the understanding of thenature, and appearance, of the Dark Star itself.
Back in 2003 it became apparent that Voyager 1 was entering an area of space where strange effects were beingregistered by the aging spacecraft. This area is thought to be the Termination Shock.
"The termination shock is where the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically charged gas blowing continuouslyoutward from the Sun, is slowed by pressure from gas between the stars. At the termination shock, the solar wind slowsabruptly from its average speed of 300 to 700 km per second and becomes denser and hotter."
(2)It is now thought that the craft is at last moving through the Heliosheath area beyond that, at a distance of 8.7 billionmiles. It is moving through an area of denser particles, and Voyager has detected a stronger magnetic field carried bythe solar wind in this region:
"The strongest evidence that Voyager 1 has passed through the termination shock into the slower, denser wind beyond is its measurement of an increase in the strength of the magnetic field carried by the solar wind and the inferred decrease in its speed. Physically, this must happen whenever the solar wind slows down, as it does at the termination shock... In December 2004, Voyager 1 observed the magnetic field strength increasing by a factor of two and a half, asexpected when the solar wind slows down. The magnetic field has remained at these high levels from December until now. An increase in the magnetic field intensity of about 1.7 times was seen at the time of the event announced in2003."
(2)The magnetic field of the Solar System is over twice as strong in the vicinity of the Termination Shock, and other morecomplex effects have been inferred from the data detected by the remarkable Voyager 1spacecraft:
"Voyager 1 also observed an increase in the number of high-speed electrically charged electrons and ions and a burst of plasma wave noisebefore the shock. This would be expected if Voyager 1 passed thetermination shock. The shock naturally accelerates electrically charged particles that bounce back and forth between the fast and slow windson opposite sides of the shock, and these particles can generate plasma waves."
(3)
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