PRESSURE PULSES AT VOYAGER 2 : DRIVERS OF INTERSTELLAR TRANSIENTS?
- Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
- State Key Laboratory for Space Weather, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)
- Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, V Holešovičkách 2, 180 00 Prague 8 (Czech Republic)
Voyager 1 ( V1 ) crossed the heliopause into the local interstellar medium (LISM) in 2012. The LISM is a dynamic region periodically disturbed by solar transients with outward-propagating shocks, cosmic-ray intensity changes and anisotropies, and plasma wave oscillations. Voyager 2 ( V2 ) trails V1 and thus may observe the solar transients that are later observed at V1. V2 crossed the termination shock in 2007 and is now in the heliosheath. Starting in 2012, when solar maximum conditions reached V2 , five possible merged interaction regions (MIRs) have been observed by V2 in the heliosheath. The timing is consistent with these MIRs driving the transients observed by V1 in the LISM. The largest heliosheath MIR was observed by V2 in late 2015 and should reach V1 in 2018.
- OSTI ID:
- 22661378
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 834; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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