Summary:
- The New Horizons spacecraft, which famously flew by Pluto in 2015, is now gearing up to cross the termination shock, a boundary where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speeds.
- Crossing the termination shock will provide valuable data about the structure and properties of the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles surrounding the Sun that extends far beyond the planets.
- This milestone will further our understanding of the outer reaches of our solar system and the interaction between the Sun's solar wind and the interstellar medium beyond.