What do the shockwave lines represent in Voyager's exit from the solar system?

[Pengwuino]

Someone posted this in another forum...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0206/heliosphere_pc_big.jpg

Its suppose to depict the voyager spacecraft exiting the solar system but i was wondering... what are those shockwave-ish lines suppose to represent? I mean there's nothing out there... so why would it make anything like what is depicted in that picture?

Kinda looks like capsules on re-entry to earth...

 

[ray b]

Someone posted this in another forum...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0206/heliosphere_pc_big.jpg

Its suppose to depict the voyager spacecraft exiting the solar system but i was wondering... what are those shockwave-ish lines suppose to represent? I mean there's nothing out there... so why would it make anything like what is depicted in that picture?

Kinda looks like capsules on re-entry to earth...

artistic licence, showing motion

or passing thru helio pause perhaps?

 

[meteor]

There're 3 boundaries depicted in your pic. The most exterior of them is called the bow shock. The 2nd boundary is the heliopause, that is the wrapping of what is called the heliosphere. The third boundary, represented barely by a circle in the image is the termination shock, and the Sun and the planets lie inside it. The zone between the heliopause and the termination shock is called the heliosheath. The bow shock seems to be like the surroundings of "a capsule on re-entry the earth" because the Sun is rotating around the Galaxy, so think of a boat sailing through a lake and the shape of the waves around it, and then you will comprehend the shape of the bow shock. Another example that can be useful is a plane traveling at supersonic speeds: it also produces a bow shock in the air in front of the plane. Voyager 1 is supposed to have crossed recently the termination shock, or being in the verge of doing it