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Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), [1] also called Explorer 94 and SMEX-12, [2] is a NASA solar observation satellite. The mission was funded through the Small Explorer program to investigate the physical conditions of the solar limb, particularly the interface region made up of the chromosphere and transition region .
The Solar System is located within a structure called the Local Bubble, a low-density region of the galactic interstellar medium. [5] Within this region is the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), an area of slightly higher hydrogen density. It is estimated that the Solar System entered the LIC within the past 10,000 years. [6]
This is the boundary of the Solar System to interstellar space. The outermost region of the Solar System is the theorized Oort cloud, the source for long-period comets, extending to a radius of 2,000–200,000 AU. The closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light-years (269,000 AU) away.
The solar wind consists of particles (ionized atoms from the solar corona) and fields like the magnetic field that are produced from the Sun and stream out into space. Because the Sun rotates once approximately every 25 days, the heliospheric magnetic field [ 11 ] transported by the solar wind gets wrapped into a spiral.
The space dominated by Earth's magnetic field and its magnetotail, shaped by the solar wind. [17] Earth's orbit: 299.2 million km [b] 2 AU [c] 2.99×10 8: The average diameter of the orbit of the Earth relative to the Sun. Encompasses the Sun, Mercury and Venus. [18] Inner Solar System ~6.54 AU 9.78×10 8
The distance separating the planet and its star is just 7% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, and the planet receives 1.6 times more energy from its star than Earth does from the Sun.
Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system, according to NASA. The planet is what’s known as a gas giant, which means it doesn’t have a solid surface — though it may have a solid core ...
Solar System space probes operational as of November 2024. This is a list of active space probes which have escaped Earth orbit. It includes lunar space probes, but does not include space probes orbiting at the Sun–Earth Lagrangian points (for these, see List of objects at Lagrangian points). A craft is deemed "active" if it is still able to ...