ibexNASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) examines the global interactions at the edge of the solar system, and has discovered a previously unknown solar wind flinging “pickup ions” at an impressive 0.5 to 2.5 million miles per hour.

“The IBEX results are truly remarkable, with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region,” says Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. “We expected to see small, gradual spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some ten billion miles away. However, IBEX is showing us a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky.”

The visualizations show this new band quite plainly.  Why wasn’t this known before?  The band lies perfectly between the flight path of previous satellites.

“The most astounding feature in the IBEX sky maps — the bright narrow ribbon — snakes through the sky between the Voyager spacecraft, where it remained completely undetected until now,” McComas says.

They have videos and pictures on their website.

via News Release: First IBEX maps reveal fascinating interactions occurring at the edge of the solar system.