Solar system caught in an interstellar tempest

The solar system is travelling through much stormier skies than we thought, and might even be about to pop out of the huge gas cloud we have been gliding through for at least 45,000 years. That's the implication of a multi-decade survey of the interstellar wind buffeting the solar system, which has revealed an unexpected change in the wind's direction.

The edge of the solar system is roughly defined by the heliosphere, a giant magnetic bubble blown by charged particles streaming from the sun. This bubble shields Earth from much of the interstellar wind, so a change in the wind's direction will have little effect here on the ground.

opening up new routes across sky, sea and land (Solar-powered travel)

A new generation of solar-powered vehicles is making extraordinary journeys around the world and pushing the boundaries of technical knowledge

The Solar Impulse glides over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco during a test flight in April. Photograph: AP

The wings of the experimental aircraft arch more than 63 metres, the same span as an Airbus A340, but they look frail, supported on the airstrip by wheeled struts. They are covered in a patina of 11,268 photovoltaic cells, which look dark blue in the grey predawn. The four 10-horsepower propellers they power now start to spin silently. Bertrand Piccard, a 55-year-old explorer and psychiatrist, dons his helmet and oxygen mask and completes his final checks. The Solar Impulse quietly taxies forwards. The plane is travelling impossibly slowly – 30km an hour – when it gently noses up and leaves the ground. With air beneath them, the rangy wings seem to gain strength; the fuselage that on the ground seemed flimsy becomes elegant, like a crane vaunting in flight. It seems not to fly, though, so much as float. Piccard spends the day wheeling the solar-powered plane around the Matterhorn and lands 12 hours later, after sunset. But the Solar Impulse is a plane that would fly for ever.
This summer, it limited itself to crossing the US. It took off from San Francisco in May and flew past the Statue of Liberty before landing at JFK in July, traversing the country in five stages, with Piccard and the other co-founder of the project, André Borschberg, a former fighter pilot in the Swiss air force, swapping places in the cockpit. The flight was a remarkable achievement: the Solar Impulse flew further than any solar-powered aircraft before.

Scientists claim that Voyager 1 left the Solar System last year

       

Sometimes it seems as though the Voyager 1 space probe is like a dog that can’t decide if it wants to be inside or out. A team of scientists led by the University of Maryland claim that the Voyager 1 space probe, which is now 11 billion miles (18 billion km) from Earth left the Solar System’s boundary last year and is not, as NASA claims, still passing through a transition zone. The controversial theory is based on models of the solar magnetic field on the edge of the system and how it interacts with interstellar space.
 
The controversy arises from the structure of the Solar System where it meets interstellar space. Inside, where we are, is the heliosphere, which is the area of influence where the power of the Sun dominates local space. It’s well defined and scientists have a pretty good idea as to its shape and extent.