Oct 19 2008
From The Space Library
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) launched from the Kwajalein Atoll at 17:47 (UT) aboard a Pegasus-XL rocket. The probe was embarking on a two-year mission to create an image of the interstellar boundary region. IBEX carried two large-aperture, single-pixel “cameras” to create an image of the outer solar system. Instead of capturing light, the cameras detected energetic neutral atoms. Energetic neutral atoms are created in the outer solar system when the hot solar wind, moving at 1 million miles per hour (1,609,344 kilometers per hour), collides with the cold gases of interstellar space. The interstellar boundary region shelters Earth from dangerous cosmic rays that otherwise would enter Earth’s orbit and affect human health and spaceflight. NASA’s GSFC was managing IBEX, which was part of the Small Explorers program.
Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 660, 1 November 2008, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx660.html (accessed 4 August 2011); NASA, “NASA Launches IBEX Mission to Outer Solar System,” news release 08-262, 19 October 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/oct/HQ_08262_IBEX_Launch.html (accessed 8 August 2011); Agence France-Presse, “NASA Launches Probe To Study Edge of Solar System,” 20 October 2008.
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