The Philippine Online Chronicles

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tuesday released new measurements from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite probe, which for the first time has sampled atoms from beyond our solar system.

IBEX, which orbits Earth at a distance of 322,000 km, maps the boundary of our solar system known as the heliosphere, a charged “bubble” created by solar particles that protect the planets from most cosmic rays.

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However, some neutral or uncharged particles make it through the heliosphere's protection. Since its 2008 launch, IBEX has been searching for these particles, and has finally found some: neutral hydrogen, neon, and oxygen. According to NASA scientists, the proportion and composition of these atoms relative to each other are quite unlike what we find in our solar system. For instance, this "galactic wind" contains 74 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms, whereas the average within the solar system is 111 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms.

"We've directly measured four separate types of atoms from interstellar space and the composition just doesn't match up with what we see in the solar system," says Eric Christian, mission scientist for IBEX at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Either the solar system evolved in a separate, more oxygen-rich part of the galaxy than where we currently reside or a great deal of critical, life-giving oxygen lies trapped in interstellar dust grains or ices, unable to move freely throughout space.” says David McComas, the principal investigator for IBEX at the Southwest Research Institute.

This new information on the cosmic wind, which scientists discovered was 11,000 km/h slower than previously believed, also allows for more precise measurements of our location in the galaxy.