Mysteriously the giant wall of the solar system was discovered by NASA

What is that wall, and what is the meaning? See NASA answer.

Launched in 2006, the New Horizons probe has helped NASA identify many mysterious phenomena that occur within the solar system.

One of them came from the outer edge of the solar system, where the ship found a giant and mysterious wall.

Specifically, this area is about 100 times the distance from the Sun to Earth. Here, hydrogen atoms carrying charges from the Sun (emitted from heliosphere) interacted with atoms without charges from other stars, and they reacted to each other.

This process is called a heliopause , and is thought to create a "wall" with hydrogen, causing the ultraviolet rays from other stars to scatter as they pass through.

30 years ago, the Voyager 1 and 2 ships discovered its traces, but no specific conclusions were made. So far, New Horizons has found a new proof, more clearly confirming the existence of this wall.

"We have found the boundary between the solar system and the rest of the galaxy," said study co-author Dr. Leslie Young from Southwestern Colorado Research Institute.

Diagram of the heliosphere (Heliosphere) and the wall (heliopause).

It is known that the evidence of New Horizons comes from Alice UV spectroscopy, which was used from 2007 to 2017. It has found a type of ultraviolet light, named Lyman-alpha rays, created when photons from the Sun collide with hydrogen atoms.

We can observe Lyman-alpha throughout the solar system. But with the heliumopause, there will be another source from where the wall is suspected, creating a stronger beam of light. In addition, UV rays outside the wall are denser, indicating that there is a wall there and scattering them.

"This may be a sign that there is a hydrogen wall where solar molecules come into contact with molecules from stars outside the solar system."

However, Young still has to emphasize that this is not the final conclusion. Maybe our solar system has another light source that we don't know. To get the final conclusion, New Horizons will have to continue to monitor the position of the wall in the future.

At some point, New Horizons will cross the wall, and if it does, the density of UV light will increase. That is the clearest evidence.

The two Voyager 1 and 2 ships had previously crossed the wall, so no further information could be provided. But with New Horizons, it only reached a distance of 42 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, so we still have time.

Even so, that 42 number takes 12 years to reach. So, the final conclusion may have to wait 10 - 15 years to get there.