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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Wed May 25, 2005 12:02 am Voyager 1 pushes for deep space |
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| Quote: | BBC NEWS
Voyager 1 pushes for deep space
The Voyager 1 probe is getting very close to the edge of the Solar System.
Launched in 1977, the craft is now some 14 billion km (8.7 billion miles) from the Sun and on the cusp of deep space.
American space agency (Nasa) scientists told a conference in New Orleans on Tuesday that Voyager was moving through a region known as the heliosheath.
This is a vast, turbulent expanse where the Sun's influence ends and particles blown off its surface crash into the thin gas that drifts between the stars.
Soon - researchers cannot be sure when - the probe will break into deep space.
"Voyager 1 has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space," said Dr Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US.
Last November, scientists debated whether Voyager had reached the so-called termination shock region.
This is where the "wind" of electrically charged particles coming off the Sun is slowed by pressure from the sparse gas found between the stars.
At the termination shock, the solar wind slows abruptly from a speed that ranges from 1.1-2.4 million km/h (700,000 to 1.5 million mph) and becomes denser and hotter.
Some researchers thought the probe had arrived at the shock; others thought it still had some way to go.
Now, at the 2005 Joint Assembly meeting organised by the American Geophysical Union, space scientists say they are confident - and agreed - that Voyager has gone beyond the termination shock and is flirting with deep space.
Predicting the location of the termination shock was hard, the researchers say, because the precise conditions in interstellar space are unknown.
Also, changes in the speed and pressure of the solar wind cause the termination shock to expand, contract and ripple.
The most persuasive evidence that Voyager 1 has crossed the termination shock is its measurement of a sudden increase in the strength of the magnetic field carried by the solar wind, combined with an inferred decrease in its speed.
This happens whenever the solar wind slows down.
Voyager 1 was initially given a mission life of five years but has continued to perform spectacularly.
The craft is carrying a time capsule in the form of a golden gramophone record, complete with stylus, which contains a recording of greetings from Earth in different languages as well as samples of music ranging from Mozart to singer Blind Willie Johnson.
Its twin, Voyager 2, launched a couple of weeks before Voyager 1, is moving on a different trajectory and is some 10.4 billion km (6.5 billion miles) away.
Glossary:
Solar wind : Stream of charged particles blown off the Sun and travelling at supersonic speeds
Termination shock : Area where particles from the Sun begin to slow and clash with matter from deep space
Heliosheath : A vast, turbulent expanse where the solar wind piles up as it presses outward against interstellar matter
Heliopause : The boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar wind, where the pressure of both are in balance
Bow shock : The shock wave caused by the edge our Solar System travelling through deep space
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4576623.stm
Published: 2005/05/24 23:09:00 GMT
� BBC MMV
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^The Voyager I Probe.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Wed May 25, 2005 12:04 am |
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AWESOME, man! It's boldly going where nothing from the Earth has gone before--working, at least. 
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Wed May 25, 2005 5:39 am |
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Interesting indeed. Wow! Who knows, maybe one day we find more planets, if there is any.
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Wed May 25, 2005 8:06 am |
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This is cool, Voyager 1 is a symbol because it's one of the oldest unmanned probes still functioning, and it's come so far. Let's hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as Pioneer 10 will in the future.
| Leo Wyatt wrote: | | Interesting indeed. Wow! Who knows, maybe one day we find more planets, if there is any. |
We have already located over 100 extrasolar planets via other detection methods.
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zero
Rear Admiral
Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 4566
Location: Texas
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| Wed May 25, 2005 1:20 pm |
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awesome!!!
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WeAz
Commodore
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Where you aren't
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| Wed May 25, 2005 5:07 pm |
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is this the first probe that we have launched to reach deep space? or were there others
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At Least In Vietnam, Bush Had An Exit Strategy
It was Bush, not Clinton, who ignored the warning signs for 9/11.
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Wed May 25, 2005 5:36 pm |
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| Janeway_74656 wrote: | | is this the first probe that we have launched to reach deep space? or were there others |
Yes, this is the first one. Both Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 are still out there, but they haven't reached the heliopause (outer edge of the solar system).
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zero
Rear Admiral
Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 4566
Location: Texas
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| Wed May 25, 2005 5:39 pm |
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are they able to send pictures or transmissions back to earth from so far away?
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Wed May 25, 2005 5:45 pm |
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| zero wrote: | | are they able to send pictures or transmissions back to earth from so far away? |
| Voyager program wrote: | To date, the entire Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 scan platform, including all of the platform instruments, has been powered down. The ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS)[2] (http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/instruments_uvs.html) on Voyager 1 was on until 2003, when it too was deactivated. Gyro operations will end in 2010 for Voyager 2 and 2011 for Voyager 1. Gyro operations are used to rotate the probe 360 degrees 6 times a year. This is used to measure the magnetic field of the spacecraft, which is then subtracted from the magnetometer science data.
The two Voyager spacecraft continue to operate, with some loss in subsystem redundancy, but retain the capability of returning science data from a full complement of VIM science instruments. Both spacecraft also have adequate electrical power and attitude control propellant to continue operating until around 2020 when the available electrical power will no longer support science instrument operation. At this time science data return and spacecraft operations will cease. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
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Lord Borg
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 11214
Location: Vulcan Capital City, Vulcan
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| Wed May 25, 2005 6:35 pm |
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This is cool
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Otter
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 12 Oct 2004
Posts: 12895
Location: England
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| Sat May 28, 2005 4:45 am |
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Intreging.
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Yeah, We'll Stay Forever This Way..
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