Studying the Weakening Heliosphere

I didn't really understand what the Heliosphere was but it's pretty interesting. The solar wind emanating from the sun forms a bubble around the solar system before it dissipates. This bubble protects us from galactic radiation that exists in the interstellar medium (the space between stars in the galaxy).

Unfortunately, "new data has revealed that the heliosphere, ... has weakened by 25% over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago [when measurements started]."

"Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing."

Sunday, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) was launched to study the heliosphere. "The ottoman-sized probe was strapped to a rocket that was strapped to the belly of an airplane, which carried it to 40,000 feet. From there, the rocket fired up and took IBEX to an orbit about 200,000 miles up."