A NASA team is working on the development of a new mission to probe the interstellar medium. This very ambitious project would aim to answer the questions that the Voyager probes could not help answer.
The Voyager 1 and 2 probes have been evolving for a few years in interstellar space. Here, where the Sun is no longer completely king, the two vessels returned interesting data allowing the composition of this space to be probed. However, the main objective of this program was to collect scientific data on the outer planets of our system, namely Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. This is why, basically, these two probes were not specially equipped to analyze this environment.
What NASA would now like is to release a new probe into this interstellar space equipped with purpose-built instruments. Some details of these plans were revealed during the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union 2021.
"The interstellar probe would go to the unknown local interstellar space, where humanity has never been before “said Dr. Elena Provornikova of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “For the first time, we could take a picture of our vast heliosphere from the outside to see what our home looks like:the solar system “.
Elena Provornikova and her team will soon complete their four-year concept study aimed at defining the possible objectives of such a mission, or even the type of instruments required for them. reach. A previous version of this interstellar mission was proposed in 1999, but it never materialized.
If this one sees the light of day, the researchers hope that it could be launched within ten to twelve years. Then count about fifteen years to reach the heliosphere (Voyager probes took thirty-five years to get there).
On paper, however, this mission is much more ambitious. Voyager 1, for example, is currently sailing at 152 astronomical units from the Sun (152 times the Earth-Sun distance). The proposed probe would aim to collect data up to 1,000 AU from the Sun . Of course, the Voyager, Pioneer and New Horizons probes will eventually reach such distances, but we will have lost contact with them for a long, long time.
In addition to sampling the interstellar medium to make measurements (composition, ionization, magnetic field), such a mission could also help us understand how the Sun's plasma interacts with interstellar gas to create our heliosphere. We could also define what lies beyond our heliosphere, or even its (still speculative) shape.
