Clear of Solar Pollution, Voyager Glimpses Star Formation in the Milky Way For the First Time
Another feat for the long-distance travelers Like city lights blinding the night sky, the sun blocks out a lot of the signals from our galactic neighborhood. Our star and its magnetic fields shield the planets from cosmic rays and the interstellar wind - by and large a good thing, but it's somewhat frustrating if you want to study the galaxy in greater detail. We cannot see, for instance, the hydrogen signals that serve as the birth pangs of stars in our neighborhood. Until now - the Voyager spacecraft have seen it for the first time. The pangs in question are Lyman-alpha emissions, a phenomenon that occurs when single-electron hydrogen ions change their energy states. Lyman-alpha (Lyα) lines are most often seen in very distant galaxies, meaning very young galaxies, and often the type of galaxies thought to be precursors to Milky Way-like ones. (They're also used for studying dark matter distribution, but...