Scientists have always tried their best to know more and more about this universe which is just perfect. Hundreds of missions have been launched into space by NASA and other organizations to better comprehend the universe. During these missions they came up with some of the most strange things and one such gathered data got them to the results that became the basis of a new discovery: a giant bubble encapsulating us. What exactly is this bubble, how did it form, and why are we trapped inside? These are the questions in everyone’s mind, but not after this video. Join us as we take a ride to the biggest bubble ever in this universe.
In November 2018, Voyager 2, after its 41 years of epic voyage, finally crossed the boundary that marked the limit of the Sun’s influence and entered interstellar space. However, entering interstellar space didn’t finish its job. It started sending data from outside the solar system. The data was not what astronomers had expected, instead it baffled them. As Voyager 2 moved farther and farther from the Sun, it found out that the density of space was increasing. However, it was not the first time the Voyager felt the density gradient.
6 years before that, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space and felt the same thing that was now being experienced by its fellow craft. This gave scientists the proof that V1 was right and there is something in the space that is creating a density gradient. To understand it further, first you need to know the space boundaries.
The Solar System’s edge can be defined by a few different boundaries. Of these, what Voyager probes crossed is the heliopause. This boundary is defined by the solar winds that are coming from the sun, the center of our solar system. The solar winds stream in all directions and the heliopause is the point at which the outward pressure of the solar wind is no longer powerful enough to push into the wind from interstellar space. The space inside the heliopause is the heliosphere and thus we can say that it’s in the form of a bubble.
Now you might have been thinking that space is a vacuum. Spoiler alert! It’s not completely. There, the density of matter is extremely low, but it still exists. The solar wind has an average proton and electron density of 3 to 10 particles per cubic centimeter in the Solar System, but it decreases as you get further away from the Sun. The decreased density goes down to around 0.002 electrons per cubic centimeter in the outer heliosphere.
