![File picture shows shows an ultraviolet image of the sun in something approaching 'true color'. NASA on Sunday launched a probe into space on a two-year mission to study the distant edge of the solar system. [Michael Benson/NASA/File/AFP]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20081020/000cf1a487730a665ea11e.jpg "File picture shows shows an ultraviolet image of the sun in something approaching 'true color'. NASA on Sunday launched a probe into space on a two-year mission to study the distant edge of the solar system. [Michael Benson/NASA/File/AFP]") |
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File picture shows shows an ultraviolet image of the sun in something approaching "true color". NASA on Sunday launched a probe into space on a two-year mission to study the distant edge of the solar system. [Michael Benson/NASA/File/AFP]
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![This artist rendering released by NASA shows the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX spacecraft in space. The small NASA spacecraft embarks on a two-year mission Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system. The Ibex probe will study a chaotic region in space where the solar wind from the sun clashes with cold gases from interstellar space. [Walt Feimer, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center/AP Photo]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20081020/000cf1a487730a665c851d.jpg "This artist rendering released by NASA shows the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX spacecraft in space. The small NASA spacecraft embarks on a two-year mission Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system. The Ibex probe will study a chaotic region in space where the solar wind from the sun clashes with cold gases from interstellar space. [Walt Feimer, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center/AP Photo]") |
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This artist rendering released by NASA shows the Interstellar Boundary Explorer or IBEX spacecraft in space. The small NASA spacecraft embarks on a two-year mission Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system. The Ibex probe will study a chaotic region in space where the solar wind from the sun clashes with cold gases from interstellar space. [Walt Feimer, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center/AP Photo]
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The Interstellar Boundary Explorer known as IBEX was launched aboard a Pegasus rocket, dropped from under the wing of an aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean. IBEX's final orbit will take it up to 320,000 kilometers from Earth.
IBEX is to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space. It will view the chaotic, but unseen, frontier of our solar system for the first time.
(CCTV October 20, 2008)
