Is the Sun Embedded in a Typical Interstellar Cloud?

Abstract

The physical properties and kinematics of the partially ionized interstellar material near the Sun are typical of warm diffuse clouds in the solar vicinity. The interstellar magnetic field at the heliosphere and the kinematics of nearby clouds are naturally explained in terms of the S1 superbubble shell. The interstellar radiation field at the Sun appears to be harder than the field ionizing ambient diffuse gas, which may be a consequence of the low opacity of the tiny cloud surrounding the heliosphere. The spatial context of the Local Bubble is consistent with our location in the Orion spur.

"From the Outer Heliosphere to the Local Bubble", held at International Space Sciences Institute, October 2007

References in corpus (24)

• The Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper Northern Sky Survey
• The Structure of the Local Interstellar Medium V: Electron Densities
• Stellar Lyman-alpha Emission Lines in the Hubble Space Telescope Archive: Intrinsic Line Fluxes and Absorption from the Heliosphere and Astrospheres
• Dust in the Local Interstellar Wind
• WHAM Observations of H-Alpha, [S II], and [N II] toward the Orion and Perseus Arms: Probing the Physical Conditions of the Warm Ionized Medium
• The Millennium Arecibo 21-cm Absorption Line Survey. I. Techniques and Gaussian Fits
• The Diffuse Interstellar Clouds toward 23 Orionis
• Interstellar Dust Inside and Outside the Heliosphere
• A New Model For The Loop-I (The North Polar Spur) Region
• Global Modeling of Spur Formation in Spiral Galaxies
• FUSE Survey of the Local Interstellar Medium within 200 Parsec
• The Structure of the Local Interstellar Medium. III. Temperature and Turbulence
• The Structure of the Local Interstellar Medium. II. Observations of D I, C II, N I, O I, Al II, and Si II toward Stars within 100 parsecs
• Density of neutral interstellar hydrogen at the termination shock from Ulysses pickup ion observations
• The Ionization of the Local Interstellar Medium, as Revealed by FUSE Observations of N, O and Ar toward White Dwarf Stars
• Filtration of interstellar hydrogen in the two-shock heliospheric interface: Inferences on the local interstellar electron density
• The Velocity Distribution of the Nearest Interstellar Gas
• Heliospheric, Astrospheric, and Insterstellar Lyman-alpha Absorption Toward 36 Oph
• An XMM-Newton Observation of the Local Bubble Using a Shadowing Filament in the Southern Galactic Hemisphere
• The thinnest cold HI clouds in the diffuse interstellar medium?
• On the Measurement of Elemental Abundance Ratios in Inner Galaxy H II Regions
• Collisional Consequences of Big Interstellar Grains
• Short-term Variations in the Galactic Environment of the Sun
• Implications of Interstellar Dust and Magnetic Field at the Heliosphere

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Optical Polarization Mapping toward the interface between the Local Cavity and Loop I
• The local Galactic magnetic field in the direction of Geminga
• Evaluating the Morphology of the Local Interstellar Medium: Using New Data to Distinguish Between Multiple Discrete Clouds and a Continuous Medium
• Project Icarus: A Review of Local Interstellar Medium Properties of Relevance for Space Missions to the Nearest Stars
• Gaussian decomposition of HI surveys. V. Search for very cold clouds