Voyager 2 might just pass beyond the outermost layer of our solar system, called the "termination shock" within the next year. This bold prediction was announced by NASA scientists at a recently concluded media conference. This is considered as a milestone which comes roughly a year after Voyager 1's crossing.

Voyager 2's scheduled passing of the termination shock is not just on time, but it comes earlier than expected. It also suggests to scientists that the edge of the shock is about one billion miles closer to the Sun in the southern region of the solar system than in the north.

This now implies that the heliosphere, which is a spherical bubble of charged-low energy particles and are by-products of our Sun's solar winds, is irregularly shaped. It may be bulging in the northern hemisphere and on the south, it is pressed inward.

In Voyager 1, scientists were able to detect that it is already passing to the termination shock when it was about 85 AU (1 AU is equal to 93 million miles) from the Sun. Scientists began detecting charged particles that were being pushed back to the Sun by other charged particles coming somewhere not from our solar system.

On the other hand, Voyager 2 began detecting such particles while only 76 AU from the Sun. With that, scientists are concluding that the terminal shock down where Voyager 2 must be closer to the Sun than that in Voyager 1's location. When asked what they think is the reason behind the heliosphere's asymmetry, they said that this may because by a weak interstellar magnetic field pressing inward on the southern hemisphere.

Both voyager spacecrafts were launched in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with different launch dates. Voyager 2 was launched earlier on August 20, 1977, while Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977. As of now, Voyager 1 is about 8.7 billion miles from the Sun and traveling at a speed of 3.6 AU per year while Voyager 2 is about 6.5 billion miles away and moving at about 3.3 AU per year.