NASA's Voyager 1 Probe May Have Left Solar System: Study
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft the farthest-flung object created by human hands has traveled beyond the sun's sphere of influence and may even have left the solar system forever, a new study suggests.
On Aug. 25, 2012, 35 years after the Voyager 1 mission launched, Earth's most distant spacecraft detected a sharp change in the intensity of fast-moving charged particles called cosmic rays, suggesting it had left the outermost reaches of the heliosphere marking the edge of the solar system.
"Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, in a statement.
NASA's Voyager 1 Probe May Have Left Solar System: Study
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Wow. Just, WOW.
I remember when it was launched and we sent it out to space, saying "Greetings"... On a gold record.
God speed, Voyager!
Yeah, this thing has been out there my entire life - it's an amazing thing.
According to NASA, as of Sept 1, 2008, it took 14 hr 52 minutes for information to travel from Voyager 1 to the Earth. Of course, once we get the information, it takes even longer to process it and interpret it - so by time the information is understood, even more time has passed.
I'm not sure what the delay is at this point.
It's amazing the things that can cause people to connect, even if only briefly.
The first space thing I remember watching on TV was Challenger - that, obviously, wasn't as good as the first lunar landing or this.
You know, I only recently begin watching any of the Start Trek shows (I'm currently on season 4 of Star Trek Enterprise) - I never realized how good the shows were.