The model described in the paper is new and different from other models used so far to explain the data the spacecraft has been sending back from more than 18 billion kilometres away from our Sun, according to a NASA statement.
NASA's Voyager project scientist, Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said: "Details of a new model have just been published that lead the scientists who created the model to argue that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft data can be consistent with entering interstellar space in 2012.
Stone said the model would mean that the interstellar magnetic field direction is the same as that which originates from our Sun.
He said other models envision the interstellar magnetic field draped around our solar bubble and predict that the direction of the interstellar magnetic field is different from the solar magnetic field inside.
By that interpretation, Voyager 1 would still be inside our solar bubble, said Stone.
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