Ulysses' View of the Heliosphere (Schematic)

Cartoon showing new aspects of the heliosphere at solar minimum as revealed by Ulysses. Among the phenomena depicted are:

• fast solar wind filling the bulk of the heliosphere, separated from the near-equatorial slow wind by a relativley sharp boundary;
• interstellar neutral gas, the source of pick-up ions which in turn form the anomalous cosmic ray component (ACR);
• corotating interaction regions (CIR), giving rise to periodic variations in the intensity of energetic particles and cosmic rays up to high latitudes;
• gamma-ray bursts;
• the heliospheric magnetic field, with enhanced fluctuations at high latitudes scattering incoming cosmic rays, and field lines connecting high and low latitudes;
• interstellar dust grains.