A Nasa spacecraft has detected neutral “alien” particles that come from beyond our solar system.
The discovey, made by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), gives the most complete glimpse yet of what lies beyond the solar system, and the history of other stars in the Milky Way.
While orbiting Earth 200,000 miles away, the IBEX was able to observe three separate types of atoms including oxygen, hydrogen and neon, which are the raw material for the formation of new stars, planets and even human beings.
Nasa’s Ulysses spacecraft detected interstellar neutral helium more than a decade ago, the Daily Mail reported.
David McComas, team leader of the IBEX program, said: “It’s exciting to be able to have these first observations of alien matter – stuff that didn’t come from our sun or the planets, but came from the outside of our solar system, from other parts of the galaxy.
The IBEX spacecraft was launched in October 2008 with the objective is to discover the nature of the interactions between the solar wind and the interstellar medium at the edge of our solar system.