Before NASA's New Horizons  conducted its epic flyby of Pluto last July, the tiny probe also penetrated through a stream of constant solar wind and even had to push its way to more powerful clouds of radioactive solar emissions known as coronal mass ejections.  

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After New Horizons revealed high resolution, never before seen images of Pluto's dynamic and complex surface, NASA created this unique visualization of its space environment, from what New Horizons saw from January to July, during its voyage to Pluto. 

According to NASA space weather scientist, Dusan Odstrcil from the Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, this simulation was set to begin from January 2015 since the particles that are streaming through Pluto also took six months to complete their journey from the sun.

This visualization provides a unique view of how solar winds stream through the solar system which are made up of supercharged particles that are flowing in a constant wave from the sun. They appear to be swirling around in a spiral shape that are emanating due to the sun's rotation. Apparently, solar winds can vary from ambient to strong, where they can also affect instruments on Earth and others within the solar system depending on their intensity and rate.

This visualization is based on what is called an Enlil model, which is derived from the Sumerian god of wind, revealing faster and much more dynamic coronal mass ejections. These particles produce northern or southern lights also known as aurorae, when they clash into the magnetic field of Earth, disrupting communication satellites, GPS and even power grids causing outages.

These particles are depicted in this visualization how their voyage for many months from the sun cause coronal mass ejections to spread out before reaching Pluto and even merge with others in order to form larger solar winds and clouds that are made from particles and magnetic fields. This combination of charged clouds can span the entire distance from the sun to Pluto, as it travels further away from the sun, transforming their original balloon shape into thinner rings.

Apart from the Enlil model providing a psychedelic view of space weather, it also gave scientists a better understanding of how spacecrafts travel through space and the dangers they are bound to encounter that includes powerful solar winds, so that they can devise and develop new technology to protect spacecraft including future manned missions from space radiation and its hazardous effects on humans.

TagsNASA New Horizons, Pluto new horizons, space weather new horizons, space weather pluto