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Published September 30, 2020 | Published
Journal Article Open

Voyager 2 Observations Near the Heliopause

Abstract

This paper discusses plasma characteristics in the heliosheath region before the heliopause (HP), at the HP, and in the very local interstellar medium (VLISM). The Voyager 2 (V2) HP was a sharp boundary where the radial plasma currents went to background levels. The radial flow speeds derived from 53-85 keV (V1) and 28-43 keV (V2) ion data decreased about 2 years (8 AU) before the HP at V1 and V2. A speed decrease was not observed by the V2 plasma instrument until 160 days (1.5 AU) before the HP crossing when V2 entered the plasma boundary layer where the plasma density and 28-43 keV ion intensity increased. We determine the HP orientation based on the plasma flow and magnetic field data and show these observations are consistent with models predicting a blunt HP. Variations are observed in the currents observed in the VLISM; roll data from this region clearly show the plasma instrument observes the interstellar plasma and may be consistent with larger than expected VLISM temperatures near the HP.

Additional Information

© 2020 Institute of Physics. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Accepted papers received: 10 August 2020; Published online: 30 September 2020. JDR was supported under NASA contract 959203 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA grant 80NSSC19K0260. RBD was supported by NASA contract NNN06AA01C. ECS and ACC were supported by NASA grant NNN12AA01C. ACC, RBD, MO, and JDR acknowledge support from NASA grant 18-DRIVE18_2-0029, Our Heliospheric Shield.

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Published - Richardson_2020_J._Phys.__Conf._Ser._1620_012016.pdf

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Richardson_2020_J._Phys.__Conf._Ser._1620_012016.pdf
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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023