NASA News: New York Students Will Call Space Station Astronaut

WASHINGTON -- Students in Otsego County, N.Y., will make a special
call to the International Space Station and Expedition 28 Flight
Engineer Ron Garan on Friday, June 17.

The event, which includes a video link with Garan, will be broadcast
live on NASA Television at 11:05 a.m. EDT. Fifth through eighth grade
students from the Oneonta City School district will ask Garan
questions about how the space station plays a pivotal role in
expanding human understanding of the Earth and space.

The State University of New York's (SUNY) Oneonta campus, located at
108 Ravine Parkway, will host the event. To attend, journalists must
contact Hal Legg at legghs@oneonta.edu by 3 p.m., June 16.

Garan received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Oneonta in 1982. The
university expects 1,000 participants from several school districts
and the Oneonta Job Corps Academy.

Garan previously spoke with many of the students in February through
NASA's Digital Learning Network about the benefits of studying
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and his first
spaceflight.

The in-flight education downlink is part of a series with educational
organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning
in STEM subjects. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space,
an agency education program that promotes learning opportunities and
builds partnerships with the education community using the unique
environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

For NASA TV information and schedules, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA's education programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/education

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NASA Probes Suggest Magnetic Bubbles Reside At Solar System Edge

WASHINGTON -- Observations from NASA's Voyager spacecraft, humanity's
farthest deep space sentinels, suggest the edge of our solar system
may not be smooth, but filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles.

While using a new computer model to analyze Voyager data, scientists
found the sun's distant magnetic field is made up of bubbles
approximately 100 million miles wide. The bubbles are created when
magnetic field lines reorganize. The new model suggests the field
lines are broken up into self-contained structures disconnected from
the solar magnetic field. The findings are described in the June 9
edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

Like Earth, our sun has a magnetic field with a north pole and a south
pole. The field lines are stretched outward by the solar wind or a
stream of charged particles emanating from the star that interacts
with material expelled from others in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy.

The Voyager spacecraft, nearly 10 billion miles away from Earth, are
traveling in a boundary region. In that area, the solar wind and
magnetic field are affected by material expelled from other stars in
our corner of the Milky Way galaxy.

"The sun's magnetic field extends all the way to the edge of the solar
system," said astronomer Merav Opher of Boston University. "Because
the sun spins, its magnetic field becomes twisted and wrinkled, a bit
like a ballerina's skirt. Far, far away from the sun, where the
Voyagers are, the folds of the skirt bunch up."

Understanding the structure of the sun's magnetic field will allow
scientists to explain how galactic cosmic rays enter our solar system
and help define how the star interacts with the rest of the galaxy.

So far, much of the evidence for the existence of the bubbles
originates from an instrument aboard the spacecraft that measures
energetic particles. Investigators are studying more information and
hoping to find signatures of the bubbles in the Voyager magnetic
field data.

"We are still trying to wrap our minds around the implications of the
findings," said University of Maryland physicist Jim Drake, one of
Opher's colleagues.

Launched in 1977, the Voyager twin spacecraft have been on a 33-year
journey. They are en route to reach the edge of interstellar space.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., built the
spacecraft and continues to operate them. The Voyager missions are a
part of the Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the
Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To view supporting images about the research, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sunearth

Source:

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