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11 billion miles out, Voyager 1 nears interstellar space
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 probe indicates the spacecraft has moved into an unexpected region of the outer solar system, possibly the last hurdle before crossing into interstellar space.
by William Harwood - December 3, 2012 3:14 PM PST
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-5...miles-out-voyager-1-nears-interstellar-space/
NASA's aging Voyager 1 probe, 35 years and 11 billion miles outbound from Earth, has crossed into an unexpected, exceedingly remote region of the solar system that may represent the spacecraft's final step before leaving the sun's influence and moving into the vast realm of interstellar space.
The region is believed to be a sort of "magnetic highway" allowing high-energy charged particles from ancient supernova explosions to move into the sun's sphere of influence and for lower-energy particles to move out into deep space.
"This is really another exciting step in the Voyager journey of exploration," Project Scientist Ed Stone told reporters Monday. "Voyager's discovered a new region of the heliosphere that we had not realized was there. It's a magnetic highway where the magnetic field of the sun -- we're still inside apparently -- but the magnetic field is connected to the outside. So it's like a highway, letting particles in and out."
As of this writing, Voyager 1 is about 11.3 billion miles from Earth and Voyager 2 is roughly 9.2 billion miles out. At those distances, it takes more than 16 hours for 20-watt radio signals, moving at 186,000 miles per second, to cross the vast gulf between the spacecraft and the giant antennas on Earth that are needed to collect the data.
On its current trajectory, Voyager 1 will pass within about 1.6 lightyears of a star in the constellation Camelopardalis in about 40,000 years. It will take even longer for Voyager 2 to pass within several light years of another star.
As a NASA mission overview concludes, "the Voyagers are destined -- perhaps eternally -- to wander the Milky Way."
EDIT: I did cut and crop so this isn't the entire article.
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 probe indicates the spacecraft has moved into an unexpected region of the outer solar system, possibly the last hurdle before crossing into interstellar space.
by William Harwood - December 3, 2012 3:14 PM PST
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-5...miles-out-voyager-1-nears-interstellar-space/
NASA's aging Voyager 1 probe, 35 years and 11 billion miles outbound from Earth, has crossed into an unexpected, exceedingly remote region of the solar system that may represent the spacecraft's final step before leaving the sun's influence and moving into the vast realm of interstellar space.
The region is believed to be a sort of "magnetic highway" allowing high-energy charged particles from ancient supernova explosions to move into the sun's sphere of influence and for lower-energy particles to move out into deep space.
"This is really another exciting step in the Voyager journey of exploration," Project Scientist Ed Stone told reporters Monday. "Voyager's discovered a new region of the heliosphere that we had not realized was there. It's a magnetic highway where the magnetic field of the sun -- we're still inside apparently -- but the magnetic field is connected to the outside. So it's like a highway, letting particles in and out."
As of this writing, Voyager 1 is about 11.3 billion miles from Earth and Voyager 2 is roughly 9.2 billion miles out. At those distances, it takes more than 16 hours for 20-watt radio signals, moving at 186,000 miles per second, to cross the vast gulf between the spacecraft and the giant antennas on Earth that are needed to collect the data.
On its current trajectory, Voyager 1 will pass within about 1.6 lightyears of a star in the constellation Camelopardalis in about 40,000 years. It will take even longer for Voyager 2 to pass within several light years of another star.
As a NASA mission overview concludes, "the Voyagers are destined -- perhaps eternally -- to wander the Milky Way."
EDIT: I did cut and crop so this isn't the entire article.
raise: Nice one!!:thumbs: