NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer. or IBEX. spacecraft is the first to image and map the dynamic interactions
taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space.
The IBEX spacecraft launched from an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket on Oct. 19. 2008
from the Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. New data from IBEX reveal that conditions at the edge of our solar
system may be much more dynamic than previously thought.
The spacecraft has produced a new set of "all-sky" maps of our solar system's interaction with the galaxy.
Future exploration missions will benefit in design and mission objectives from a better understanding of the
changing conditions in this outer region of our solar system.