Do cosmic rays come from a bubble around the solar system?
When the supersonic wind of charged particles that flows from our sun collides with the thin gas found between the stars, the solar wind essentially blows a bubble in this interstellar medium a ball known as the heliosphere. Scientists have thought unusually weak cosmic rays energetic particles that zip from space at Earth come from the heliosphere. Specifically, these rays are thought to come from the “termination shock” a shock wave of compressed, hot particles that results when the solar wind abruptly brakes against interstellar gas. (The termination shock appears to be about 75 to 85 AU from the sun.) However, Voyager 1 saw no sign these anomalous cosmic rays were produced at the termination shock. “Perhaps it crossed the shock at the wrong time or place,” said MIT astrophysicist John Richardson, or perhaps the standard view on how these anomalous cosmic rays are generated is wrong. Voyager 2 crossed the termination shock in 2007 about 10 billion miles away from where Voyager 1 cro
