Defining boundaries can simplify our understanding of the world, but when it comes to concepts like the size of the Solar System, things can get complex. In fact, the traditional vision with the Sun in the center and the planets orbiting it may not be enough to describe its true limits.
The solar system it does not end with the orbit of Neptune, as is often imagined. Beyond the outermost planet, vast spaces extend that are still bound to the Sun by the force of gravity. Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), for example, include icy bodies orbiting in the so-called Kuiper belt and the remote Oort cloud. The latter can extend up to a trillion kilometers from the Sunan immense distance when compared to the orbits of the planets.
The question of the boundaries of the solar system has become topical with the recent news regarding the Voyager 1 probe. Launched in 1977, it reached a distance of 24 billion kilometers from Earthmore than 160 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. After a communications interruption due to a hardware failure, engineers managed to restore operations.
In 2013, NASA announced that the probe had crossed the heliopauseentering interstellar space in 2012. This raised a discussion: although it had entered a region dominated by the interstellar medium, Voyager 1 was still influenced by the gravity of the Sunproving that the boundaries of the solar system are not as clear-cut as one might think.
The discovery of Voyager 1 highlighted how our understanding of the boundaries of the solar system is still evolving. Just like the debate over the Kármán line, which attempts to establish the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, the definition of the heliopause is also subject to scientific reviews and discussions.
Bluetooth Headphones, Bluetooth 5.3 Wireless Earphones, 5-7 h per tr is one of the best sellers today on