31-05-2005 06:20									#1
	Voyager 1 space probe on the boarder of interstellar space Put an end to popups!

Voyager 1 reaches solar system's final frontier Wed May 25,12:00 PM ET



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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 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.


GO, VOYAGER, GO!

	31-05-2005 06:23									#2
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Indeed!

-=Vel=-

	31-05-2005 06:26									#3
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But anyone who saw the first Star Trek movie knows it will be back.

	31-05-2005 06:42									#4
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quote: Originally posted by Zkribbler But anyone who saw the first Star Trek movie knows it will be back.

	31-05-2005 06:44									#5
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NASA makes things to last...

	31-05-2005 06:44									#6
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cool

	31-05-2005 07:04									#8
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Yet another plea for spellchecking in thread titles.....

	31-05-2005 07:53									#9
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quote: 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.

Good thing there are instructions and 55 different languages worth of greetings. Wouldn't want those aliens to be perplexed, now would we?

	31-05-2005 08:43									#10
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The real problem is that if any alien species finds those things, they'll know exactly where to go for an easy conquest.

	31-05-2005 08:48									#11
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If Star Trek is correct, Verger will be home in 200 years.

	31-05-2005 08:58									#12
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quote: Originally posted by pchang The real problem is that if any alien species finds those things, they'll know exactly where to go for an easy conquest.

Canada?

	31-05-2005 09:07									#13
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Does anyone know how fast it is now going?

	31-05-2005 11:21									#14
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Fast...it has achieved 'Britney' speed.

I think it was a really stupid putting our address on the things. We have no idea who will end up with them.

	31-05-2005 13:29									#15
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Calling that the border of interstellar space is pretty much stupid, since the Outer Oort Cloud, home of comets, reaches a thousand times further out.

As for aliens, anyone within 50ly already know of our radio broadcasts.

	31-05-2005 19:32									#16
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This is awesome!



Last night, I watched an interesting, fasinating documentary hosted by astronomers, biologists and geologists in which they use computer digital technology to portray hypothetical planets and hypothetical alien lifeforms. The show is called Extraterrestrial.

	31-05-2005 21:25									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Joseph If Star Trek is correct, Verger will be home in 200 years.

With this guy on it

	31-05-2005 22:43									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Lancer Fast...it has achieved 'Britney' speed. I think it was a really stupid putting our address on the things. We have no idea who will end up with them.

if someone finds it they are going to know for damned sure which star it came from considering how far it could possibly travel and how fast it is going.

	31-05-2005 23:44									#19
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quote: Originally posted by pchang The real problem is that if any alien species finds those things, they'll know exactly where to go for an easy conquest.

Unfortunately, they'll also likely mistranslate the verbal greetings to something like "good eats, come n get it"

	31-05-2005 23:49									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist Calling that the border of interstellar space is pretty much stupid, since the Outer Oort Cloud, home of comets, reaches a thousand times further out.

The occasional rock loosely more or less orbiting the sun until something kicks it isn't interesting as a boundary. The difference in the nature and origin of particles (outbound solar wind vs. interstellar particles) is somewhat more useful, although the whole idea of a border is pretty silly no matter how you define it.

	01-06-2005 00:14									#21
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Indeed, most main-seq. stars are reckoned to have something like an Oort cloud that would interact with, and exchange bodies with other such clouds... plus in a given sphere with a radius of 1AU, you're probably going to find only ~100 bodies.

Magnetic or plasma-related boundaries make more sense, especially since rocky bodies are only incidental to what is essentially the magnetic+plasma phenomenon of the sun.