BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Last year scientists at the DRIVE Science Center determined that the bubble around our solar system may be shaped like a giant croissant.
This is because, according to Science Alert, solar winds and radiation pouring out from the sun are shaped by the interaction of the solar magnetic field with the interstellar magnetic field and form a protective bubble to shield us from powerful cosmic radiation, known as the heliosphere.
The traditional view of the heliosphere is that it is shaped like a comet’s tail, but new modelling found it had two jets curling away from a central bulbous area, like a deflated croissant.
Now, in The Astrophysical Journal, the same scientists have explained the reason for this is that neutral hydrogen atoms streaming in from outside the solar system and interacting with ionized matter in the heliosphere cause a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, where two fluids of different densities meet and cause the lighter fluid to push into the heavier one, producing turbulence.
The team used data from the Voyager probes, which have travelled outside of the heliosphere, and are currently making their way through interstellar space, to make their calculations.
