3-D View of the Heliosphere

R.J. Forsyth

Imperial College London, UK

Our 3-D view of the heliosphere has been revolutionised by the results returned from the Ulysses space mission over its 17+ years in orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft has been in a near polar orbit with an approximately 6 year period, aphelion at 5.4 AU, and perihelion at 1.3 AU. Thus almost three orbits have been completed, giving coverage under both solar minimum and maximum conditions and allowing successive solar minima to be compared. A suite of instrumentation providing diagnostics of the solar wind plasma and magnetic fields, solar energetic particles and cosmic rays has allowed properties of all these to be mapped out over a full range of heliographic latitudes and their variation over the solar cycle. This paper will review the major results from the Ulysses mission, putting them in the context of knowledge gained also from other solar and heliospheric missions and from theoretical and modelling work.