The massive bubble of influence for the Sun, within which the Earth and the rest of the Solar System whirl around the galaxy, has an unexpected shape, say scientists for NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), who report their first results today in Science.

The heliosphere is the space created by a steady stream of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, that slam into galactic particles and reach a standstill. Here’s Nature’s kitchen-sink analogy. IBEX measures the neutral particles created at this collisional boundary.

Most thought the heliosphere had a raindrop shape, with the nose of the drop pointing in the direction of the Sun’s galactic velocity. Instead, IBEX detected a strange, unexpected ribbon-like shape. It is also interesting that Voyager 1 and 2 — which measured the heliosphere’s boundary as they burst through the bubble 30 years after their launch — just barely missed this snaking feature on the sky.