'Voyager Probes the Sun's Electrical Environment' - Wal Thornhill"…with his [Birkeland's] extraordinary intuition he had a feeling for the huge electrical importance of the universe. Future research may show that such messages from the sun are equally important to us as Galileo's understanding of messages from the stars when he took his telescope and studied space for the first time."
— Sem Sæland, memorial address to Birkeland, 22 September 1919.
"…the interaction of our sun with the surrounding interstellar matter from other stars is more dynamic and complex than we had imagined, and there is more yet to be learned as Voyager begins the final leg of its race to the edge of interstellar space."
— Dr. Edward Stone, Voyager Project Scientist at CalTech, 27 September 2005.
"The expectations of NASA scientists are not being met because their shock front model is incorrect. The boundary that Voyager has reached is more complex and structured than a mechanical impact. It conforms more closely to the effects seen in electric discharges in gases at low pressures, discovered by Irving Langmuir in the 1920's and 30's. Until the fabulous journey of the Voyager spacecrafts scientists have not been so confronted with the electrical nature of the Sun and its galactic environment."
— Wal Thornhill, 29 September 2006.
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Voyager Probes the Sun's Electrical Environment, 30 September 2006