Voyager One Leaves Solar System

[workingcinderellaman]

Voyager 1 becomes first human-made object to leave solar system

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

updated 4:44 PM EDT, Thu September 12, 2013

 

 

 

(CNN) -- At the edge of the heliosphere, you wouldn't know by looking whether you left the cradle of humanity behind and floated out into interstellar space. You would just see unfathomably empty space, no matter which side of the invisible line you were on.

But scientists now have strong evidence that NASA's Voyager 1 probe has crossed this important border, making history as the first human-made object to leave the heliosphere, the magnetic boundary separating the solar system's sun, planets and solar wind from the rest of the galaxy.

"In leaving the heliosphere and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined other historic journeys of exploration: The first circumnavigation of the Earth, the first steps on the Moon," said Ed Stone, chief scientist on the Voyager mission. "That's the kind of event this is, as we leave behind our solar bubble."

A new study in the journal Science suggests that the probe entered the interstellar medium around August 25, 2012. You may have heard other reports that Voyager 1 has made the historic crossing before, but Thursday was the first time NASA announced it.

The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977, 16 days apart. As of Thursday, according to NASA's real-time odometer, Voyager 1 is 18.8 billion kilometers (11.7 billion miles) from Earth. Its sibling, Voyager 2, is 15.3 billion (9.5 billion) kilometers from our planet.

Technically, if you include the distant comets that orbit the sun, then Voyager 1 has not left "the solar system," Stone said. For that, we'll have to wait another 30,000 years.

Another milestone for long after we're gone: The probe will fly near a star in about 40,000 years, Stone said.

How do we know?

Voyager, currently traveling at more than 38,000 miles per hour, never sent a postcard saying "Greetings from interstellar space!" So whether it has made the historic crossing or not is a matter of controversy.

"The spacecraft itself really doesn't know," Stone said. "It's only instruments that can tell us whether we're inside or outside."

Further complicating matters, the device aboard Voyager 1 that measures plasma -- a state of matter with charged particles -- broke in 1980.

To get around that, scientists detected waves in the plasma around the spacecraft and used that information to calculate density. Vibrations in the plasma came from a large coronal mass ejection from the sun in 2012, resulting in what Stone called a "solar wind tsunami." These vibrations reached the area around Voyager this spring.

Measurements taken between April 9 and May 22 of this year show that Voyager 1 was, at that time, located in an area with an electron density of about 0.08 per cubic centimeter.

 

In the interstellar medium, the density of electrons is thought to be between 0.05 and 0.22 per cubic centimeter. The particles of interstellar plasma were created by the explosions of giant stars, and carry the magnetic field of the galaxy, scientists said.

Last year, between October 23 and November 27, researchers calculate that Voyager 1 was in an area with an electron density of 0.06 per cubic centimeter. That's still within the interstellar space range, and it means that over time the spacecraft passed through plasma with increasing electron density.

The study suggests that the plasma density is about 30 times higher in the interstellar medium than in the heliosphere, which is close to what scientists thought based on other kinds of measurements. The boundary is called the heliopause.

Voyager mission timeline:

When did it happen?

Scientists have been using several kinds of measurements to figure out if and when Voyager 1 had reached the interstellar medium.

Evidence from particle data had already pointed toward the conclusion that the probe succeeded. In late July and early August of 2012, scientists saw dips in the concentration of particles made in the solar system, and peaks in particles made outside.

"If you just looked at that data, you'd think it's pretty clear that we've actually crossed a boundary. We're no longer in the place where the solar system particles are being made, and we're actually out in the interstellar medium," said Marc Swisdak, associate research scientist in the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland. Swisdak was not involved in the new study, but has worked with Voyager data.

Magnetic field measurements suggested otherwise. Researchers had expected to see stark changes in magnetic field direction when the probe crossed out of the heliosphere, but that wasn't supported by measurements from the probe.

Swisdak and colleagues published a modeling study suggesting that the particle data is more relevant, and that the magnetic field might not change as much as people thought. They proposed a crossing-over date of July 27 -- about a month sooner than the new study.

The specific date will likely be debated for some time, Swisdak said. One possible explanation is that if the heliosphere is analogous to an air-conditioned room, Voyager stepped through the doorway into a hot room on July 27. For a month it was in a metaphorical room with a mixture of hot and cold air, and finally entered the truly hot part on August 25.

Puzzles still surround the magnetic field at the edge of the heliosphere, Stone said, and "We're going to be prepared to have more surprises."

NASA sends unmanned rocket to the moon

What else is out there?

Voyager 1 has only 68 KB of memory on board -- far less than a smartphone, said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager. Scientists communicate with the spacecraft every day.

"It's the little spacecraft that could," she said in a NASA press conference.

The probe now has a totally new mission, Stone said.

"We're now on the first mission to explore interstellar space," he said. "We will now look and learn in detail how the wind which is outside, that came from these other stars, is deflected around the heliosphere."

Wind -- made of particles -- from these other stars has to go around the heliosphere the way a water in a stream flows around a rock, Stone said. Scientists are interested in learning more about the interaction between our solar wind and wind from other stars.

Natural radioactive decay provides heat that generates enough electricity to help Voyager 1 communicate with Earth. The first science instrument will be turned off in 2020, and the last one will be shut down in 2025, Stone said.

Both Voyager probes carry time capsules known as "the golden record," a 12-inch, gold-plated copper disc with images and sounds so that extraterrestrials could learn about us. Let's hope they can build appropriate record players.

Voyager 2 will likely leave the heliosphere in about three to four years, Stone said.

Its plasma instrument is still working, Stone said, so scientists can directly measure the stellar wind's density, speed and temperature. That also means that when it crosses out of the heliosphere, Voyager 2 will send a clearer signal.

At that time, it will join its twin in the vast nothingness between stars that used to be beyond our reach.

Rocket frog takes flying leap

[workingcinderellaman]

This this actually a pretty big deal when you think about it. Something man-made has left the solar system for the first time.

[treeduck]

At last we're free! Finally out unfettered into the interstellar medium! Real space at last shackled by our home star no longer!

 

[workingcinderellaman]

And in about 40,000 years we may get some good-looking bald women visitors.

http://trekcore.com/specials/rare/Illia.jpg

[treeduck]

And in about 40,000 years we may get some good-looking bald women visitors.

http://trekcore.com/specials/rare/Illia.jpg

She was just a woman that the thing, V-Ger, seized control of and assumed occupancy of, merging with her making her a vessel for it and ultimately destroying her individual self in the process.

[OGr8imL84AD8inF8sBlackSedan]

I hope the door doesn't hit it in the ass on the way out!!!

[treeduck]

I hope the door doesn't hit it in the ass on the way out!!!

It already has, it's called the heliopause!

[Principled Man]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

[treeduck]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

And the next star system has probably got absolutely nothing there except dead planets and meteor belts. Maybe no planets at all in fact!

Edited September 12, 2013 by treeduck

[workingcinderellaman]

And in about 40,000 years we may get some good-looking bald women visitors.

http://trekcore.com/specials/rare/Illia.jpg

She was just a woman that the thing, V-Ger, seized control of and assumed occupancy of, merging with her making her a vessel for it and ultimately destroying her individual self in the process.

Merging with her? Was that Trekkie porn? :dweez:

 

 

[Principled Man]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

And the next star system has probably got absolutely nothing there except dead planets and meteor belts. Maybe no planets at all in fact!

 

Indeed......even if we could travel the neighboring star systems, the chances are very low that we would find any "New Earths". Just different stars and uninhabitable planets.....

[treeduck]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

And the next star system has probably got absolutely nothing there except dead planets and meteor belts. Maybe no planets at all in fact!

 

Indeed......even if we could travel the neighboring star systems, the chances are very low that we would find any "New Earths". Just different stars and uninhabitable planets.....

Or rocks!

 

:aliensmiley: :aliensmiley: <<< diamond shapes

[treeduck]

And in about 40,000 years we may get some good-looking bald women visitors.

http://trekcore.com/specials/rare/Illia.jpg

She was just a woman that the thing, V-Ger, seized control of and assumed occupancy of, merging with her making her a vessel for it and ultimately destroying her individual self in the process.

Merging with her? Was that Trekkie porn? :dweez:

 

:yes: :yes: :yes:

[USB Connector]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

[JohnnyBlaze]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

Foolish, self-centered mortal. 40,000 years is but a fraction of a heartbeat in the time a universe breathes.

[treeduck]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

It has finally got past the heliopause so it is out of the solar system proper, but it still has to get past the Oort cloud which the sun has a loose influence over. To get to the inner edge of could take 300 years and to fly beyond it could take 30,000 years. So in that case it's gonna be a while, but I wouldn't count that as truly part of the solar system so yeah in my opinion it's out.

 

Here's a map.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Solarmap.png

[treeduck]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

Foolish, self-centered mortal. 40,000 years is but a fraction of a heartbeat in the time a universe breathes.

It's how long it takes the universe to fart.

[USB Connector]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

It has finally got past the heliopause so it is out of the solar system proper, but it still has to get past the Oort cloud which the sun has a loose influence over. To get to the inner edge of could take 300 years and to fly beyond it could take 30,000 years. So in that case it's gonna be a while, but I wouldn't count that as truly part of the solar system so yeah in my opinion it's out.

 

Here's a map.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Solarmap.png

 

Thank you. I'm really curious to know what it will send back. I think what's most impressive is that this thing is accurate enough to send a signal straight at Earth from that distance. What kind of precision does that require from such a distance? down to the millionth of a degree?

[treeduck]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

It has finally got past the heliopause so it is out of the solar system proper, but it still has to get past the Oort cloud which the sun has a loose influence over. To get to the inner edge of could take 300 years and to fly beyond it could take 30,000 years. So in that case it's gonna be a while, but I wouldn't count that as truly part of the solar system so yeah in my opinion it's out.

 

Here's a map.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Solarmap.png

 

Thank you. I'm really curious to know what it will send back. I think what's most impressive is that this thing is accurate enough to send a signal straight at Earth from that distance. What kind of precision does that require from such a distance? down to the millionth of a degree?

I don't think anyone knows for sure, it's just speculation at this point. I think Voyager's power will run out around 2025, so after that there'll be no signals and Voyager will just drift alone.

[missionman]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

It has finally got past the heliopause so it is out of the solar system proper, but it still has to get past the Oort cloud which the sun has a loose influence over. To get to the inner edge of could take 300 years and to fly beyond it could take 30,000 years. So in that case it's gonna be a while, but I wouldn't count that as truly part of the solar system so yeah in my opinion it's out.

 

Here's a map.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Solarmap.png

Yeah, it's out. I agree. How much farther can ya get??? (at tens of thousands of mph) That shit is sooo cool treeduck!!!!!

[Principled Man]

More Bad News: If we could travel at 1,000 times the speed of light, it would still take over a day and a half to get to Proxima Centauri, the nearest neighboring star, 30 years to reach the center of the galaxy, and 2,000 years to reach Andromeda, the nearest galaxy.

 

......that is how VAST outer space is.

[treeduck]

More Bad News: If we could travel at 1,000 times the speed of light, it would still take over a day and a half to get to Proxima Centauri, the nearest neighboring star, 30 years to reach the center of the galaxy, and 2,000 years to reach Andromeda, the nearest galaxy.

 

......that is how VAST outer space is.

And Andromeda and The Milky Way are a mere two galaxies out of what could be a trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

 

We’re taking a region of space that has very few nearby galaxies, or galaxies whose light takes less than a few billion years to reach us. We’ve selected a deliberately low-density portion of the nearby Universe. The XDF has found many more galaxies whose light has traveled between 5 and 9 billion years to reach us, which are relatively dim galaxies that the HUDF simply couldn’t pick up. But where it really shines is in the early Universe, at finding galaxies whose light has been on its was for more than 9 billion years, finding the majority of new galaxies there.

 

But even the XDF is not optimized for finding these galaxies; we’d need an infrared space telescope for that, which is what James Webb is going to be. When that comes around, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there are maybe even close to a trillion galaxies in the observable Universe; we just don’t have the tools to find them all yet. In the meantime, our best tool—the Hubble Space Telescope—is showing us that the deeper we look, the more we’ll continue to be rewarded with new, faint, and distant galaxies, as well as richer details in the already discovered ones.

 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/10/10/how-many-galaxies-are-there-in-the-universe-the-redder-we-look-the-more-we-see/#.UjLQS8ZwqC8

[USB Connector]

Has it actually left the solar system this time? I've read the headline about 5 times over the course of the last year with a correction each time saying "no, it wasn't last time because ______:

It has finally got past the heliopause so it is out of the solar system proper, but it still has to get past the Oort cloud which the sun has a loose influence over. To get to the inner edge of could take 300 years and to fly beyond it could take 30,000 years. So in that case it's gonna be a while, but I wouldn't count that as truly part of the solar system so yeah in my opinion it's out.

 

Here's a map.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Solarmap.png

 

Thank you. I'm really curious to know what it will send back. I think what's most impressive is that this thing is accurate enough to send a signal straight at Earth from that distance. What kind of precision does that require from such a distance? down to the millionth of a degree?

I don't think anyone knows for sure, it's just speculation at this point. I think Voyager's power will run out around 2025, so after that there'll be no signals and Voyager will just drift alone.

 

and then it will become our first piece of extrasolar space trash :P

 

I look forward to seeing what it will send back before that.

[Lost In Xanadu]

I probably reached it a while ago - it takes a long time to transmit data that far :D

[Babycat]

This is why I get into everything Star Trek. It helps me make believe that we can travel the galaxy in a decent amount of time......

 

.........instead of the pathetic real-life 40,000 years it takes to get to the next star system. :rage:

Foolish, self-centered mortal. 40,000 years is but a fraction of a heartbeat in the time a universe breathes.

It's how long it takes the universe to fart.

 

:LMAO: fart..! :LMAO: