New York:The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place, where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space, will be launched on October 19 from Kwajalein Atoll, a part of Marshall Island in the pacific ocean.

Called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX, the two-year mission will conduct extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth to investigate and capture images of processes taking place at the farthest reaches of the solar system, American space agency NASA said.

Known as the interstellar boundary, this region marks where the solar system meets interstellar space.

"The interstellar boundary regions are critical because they shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays, which otherwise would penetrate into Earth s orbit and make human spaceflight much more dangerous," said David J McComas, IBEX principal investigator and senior executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

The story of the outer solar system began to unfold when the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts left the inner solar system and headed out towards the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space.
Source : PTI