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ibex is a nasa mission that will for the

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first time

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take a picture

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of the edge of our solar system

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an area way out beyond the orbits of the

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planets way out beyond pluto

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where the solar system interacts with

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the gas of the galaxy with interstellar

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the interstellar boundary explorer has

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two cameras and these cameras

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image the global structure of the

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boundaries that surround our solar

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system they image these boundaries not

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with light but with particles themselves

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they've created a whole new way

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to image these structures

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energetic neutral atoms start their life

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as charged particles as very fast-moving

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charged particles they get actually

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accelerated up to very high speeds

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because they have an electric charge

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they're missing one or more electrons as

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they're coming into the solar system in

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this interaction between the solar wind

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and interstellar gas

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they can from another particle grab an

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electron

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and become neutral

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at that point they're not affected by

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magnetic fields they move in a straight

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line at high speeds towards whichever

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direction they happen to be going in at

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the time they neutralize some of those

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will be heading at the earth and those

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are the ones that ibex is measuring

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ibex is the first mission

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to actually understand the whole

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heliosphere

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the voyager spacecraft

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launched in the 1970s have finally

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reached the first of the boundaries of

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the heliosphere

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and they're taking

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wonderful and detailed measurements at

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two points two points at these

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boundaries

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instead what ibex is going to do is to

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go into an earth orbit a high altitude

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earth orbit and look out at the boundary

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not just in one or two directions but in

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all directions in space

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and by measuring particles coming in

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from those very distant regions we'll be

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able to make an image

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of the interaction all around us

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the ibex map is going to be more more

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important than the two points that we

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get from voyager 1 voyager 2 because

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we only have two points but this is

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enormous this is a structure that's

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billions of miles and so just measuring

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in two points is like just having two

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buoys

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in

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the ocean currents from those two buoys

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we have our two buoys voyager 1 and

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voyager 2 and then with a satellite

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looking out instead of down we get a map

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of the entire region with ibex

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how does the interstellar boundary

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explorer mission actually get to this

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very high altitude orbit all the way up

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to the moon

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the answer is that we use a pegasus

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rocket which is dropped from the belly

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of an airplane the pegasus rocket is

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going to actually get us into low earth

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orbit but in order to get to very very

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high altitude we incorporate with the

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pegasus rocket another rocket motor

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the launch of that gets us up to a

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higher orbit and then we use additional

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propulsion on top of that to get us to