Voyager 1 exits sun's realm

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Tiny Voyager Exits Sun's Realm

Probe Enters Area of Space Where Solar Influence Wanes

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (May 25) - NASA's Voyager 1 has reached the final frontier of our solar system, having traveled through a turbulent place where electrically charged particles from the Sun crash into thin gas from interstellar space.

 

Astronomers tracking the little spaceship's 26-year journey from Earth believe Voyager 1 has gone through a region known as termination shock, some 8.7 billion miles from the Sun, and entered an area called the heliosheath.

 

''Voyager 1 has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space,'' Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said in a statement released on Tuesday.

 

Voyager watchers theorized last November that the craft might be reaching this bumpy region of space when the charged solar particles known as the solar wind seemed to slow down from a top speed of 1.5 million miles per hour.

 

This was expected at the area of termination shock, where the solar winds were expected to decelerate as they bump up against gas from the space beyond our solar system. It is more than twice as distant as Pluto, the furthest planet in our system.

 

By monitoring the craft's speed and the increase in the force of the solar wind, Voyager scientists now believe the craft has made it through the shock and into the heliosheath.

 

 

 

 

 

Predicting the location of the termination shock was hard because the precise conditions in interstellar space are unknown and the termination shock can expand, contract and ripple, depending on changes in the speed and pressure of the solar wind.

 

''Voyager's observations over the past few years show the termination shock is far more complicated than anyone thought,'' said Eric Christian, a scientist with NASA's Sun-Solar System Connection program.

 

Voyager 1 and its twin spacecraft Voyager 2 were launched in 1977 on a mission to explore the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. The pair kept going, however, and the mission was extended.

 

Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, the only spacecraft to have visited these outer planets. Both Voyagers are now part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission to explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain.

 

Both Voyagers are capable of returning scientific data from a full range of instruments, with adequate electrical power and attitude control propellant to keep operating until 2020.

 

Wherever they go, the Voyagers each carry a golden phonograph record which bears messages from Earth, including natural sounds of surf, wind, thunder and animals. There are also musical selections, spoken greetings in 55 languages, along with instructions and equipment on how to play the record.

 

 

Reuters 11:52 05-25-05

 

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

[HRH The KING 0]

Incredible.

 

Technology from the 1970's is still going strong.

 

Very robust. Developed back in the days when NASA had ambition.

 

We should send a more developed Voyager III to Pluto, then six months later, launch Voyager IV to Pluto in case the first one fails. Both should be equipped with landing probes to capture images of Pluto and Charon, it's moon.

 

It's the only planet yet to be visited by a space probe and I want to see it.

[Kor37 9]

Voyager is racing towards its destiny to become VGER now.