So the solar system is bent?

After all these years we found out that our solar system is bent? Like a taco shell? The LA scientists concluded that the solar system is bent after
Voyager 2 traveled beyond the "termination" point where magnetic fields
cause the mass of gas to distort in shape. Ok, I've always learned from school that the solar systems are either elliptical or sometimes circular disks but I never learned that they were bent. This sort of means that we are traveling in a constant wave. Maybe we can learn more about our weather patterns from this?

www.cnn.com...

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- New observations from NASA's long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft show the solar system is asymmetrical, likely from disturbances in the interstellar magnetic field, scientists reported Monday.Researchers have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now, said Voyager mission scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.

Voyager 2 crossed a barrier in the solar system known as the termination shock in August, some 10 billion miles from where Voyager 1 passed through. The termination shock is the region where charged particles from the sun abruptly slow down as they collide with other particles and a magnetic field in interstellar gas.

Scientists believe the unevenness is caused by the interstellar magnetic field that is pitched at an angle to the plane of the Milky Way.

"The magnetic field is disturbing an otherwise spherical surface," Stone said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Although Voyager 2 was the second probe to zip past the termination shock, scientists were nonetheless excited about the milestone. Unlike its twin, Voyager 2 had a working instrument that made the first direct measurements of the speed and temperature of the solar wind.

Originally posted by die_another_day

After all these years we found out that our solar system is bent? Like a taco shell?

Not exactly. They aren't referring to the solar plane, planetary orbits, and such. They are referring to the heliosheath, a roughly spherical boundary surrounding the solar system. "Bent" is the wrong word to use, really. Think "warped" or "dented".

This article explains it much better than the AP story. www.nasa.gov...

If this proves the heliopause is non-spherical it makes sense to me that the external energy from the rest of the universe is not the same in all directions.