NASA: What is the mysterious brightness captured by the New Horizon probe?
The New Horizon probe is at the edge of our Solar System and confirms the sighting of a strange phenomenon first recorded three decades ago.
The space probe NASA , New Horizon , detected a strange light on the outer edge of our solar system that would corroborate a mysterious phenomenon was observed three decades ago.
It was an ultraviolet glow that emanates from the edge of the Solar System and could come from a hydrogen wall and represent the limit of the influence of our Sun.
The findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "We are seeing the threshold between being in the solar neighborhood and being outside it, in the galaxy," said researcher Leslie Young of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and a member of the New Horizons team.
A FLASH OF THREE DECADES
This phenomenon was also captured by the Voyager probes, which were launched in the 70s and which thirty years later have already exceeded the outer limit of our Solar System.
These probes also detected the same phenomenon that is now corroborated with more and better data.
New Horizon is the probe launched in 2006 with the specific objective of making a first recognition of the dwarf planet Pluto, venturing into the mysterious and distant Kuiper Belt and helping us understand the margins of our Solar System.
WALL OF HYDROGEN
The explanation to this mysterious flash would be the long-sought hydrogen wall.
The solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, generates a magnetic bubble that covers the entire Solar System and whose ultimate limit is known as heliopause.
Beyond the edge of this bubble, uncharged hydrogen atoms in interstellar space slow down when hit by solar wind particles, this phenomenon generates a hydrogen wall that scatters ultraviolet light in a particular way, generating the strange radiance.
However, Wayne Pryor, another of the authors of the study, states that there are now two possible scenarios as New Horizon continues its journey: If the ultraviolet light decreases or disappears, it means that the probe is leaving behind the hydrogen dye.
But if the light does not fade, it would mean that the source of this light could be later in deep space.
New Horizon is expected to surpass Ultima Thule, an object in the Kuiper Belt, in 2019 and maintain its trajectory for a period of 10 to 15 years.