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Voyagers Legacy in Pictures

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-see dept.

tanveer1979 writes "Space.com has an interesting photo feature from the voyager craft. For the uninformed voyager is the most distant man made object. For the first time we are recieving photos of distant parts of the solar system. Currently voyager is about 12 light hours away. Wonder how far is that? Well Sun is 8 light minutes away from Earth. In case you are wondering what is this all about, check out the current location of voyager. The voyager spacecraft are about to cross heliopause, which is the limit of the rule of the sun, after which inter steller winds take over, and for the first time scientists can get the feel of what lies outside the solar system."

2 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. New technology by Whispers_in_the_dark · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It makes me wonder what we could do with the even lower power and lower weight computer/sensor technologies we have available now. Looks like the Voyagers are going to last past 2020 but with even lower power one might marvel at how long newer devices could last. That is assuming, of course, that we can ever straighten out conversions between english and metric units.

  2. Moores law may not apply in space by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    (* It makes me wonder what we could do with the even lower power and lower weight computer/sensor technologies we have available now. Looks like the Voyagers are going to last past 2020 but with even lower power one might marvel at how long newer devices could last. *)

    Too small of electronic parts cause problems near heavy radiation areas like Jupiter and other gas giant planets. Some of this can be helped with sheilding, but the sheilding increases the weight where it may be more effective to use fat electronics rather than fat shielding.

    One of the reasons that a planned Europa (Jup moon) probe was postponed is that the cost of radiation sheilding was more expensive than they thought. Older probes did not have as much worries about that because their electronics were larger. Now they have to weigh more tradeoffs because of the options and problems that minituration provides WRT heavy radiation.

    Plus, doesn't the power needed for radio transmission remain pretty much constant, especially in light of the fact that newer missions send more data than older ones?

    The efficiency of radio transmission has not followed Moore I don't believe. It is linear I think.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.