Voyager 1 Crosses The Termination Shock

SubstormGuy writes "In a scientific session at the AGU meeting in New Orleans this morning, Dr. Ed Stone presented clear evidence that Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock last December. The scientists in the room applauded when the announcement was made."

Comments

2005 is shaping up to be quite the year!

[uptownguy]

I am shocked I say -- SHOCKED -- to hear this news.

And excited.

The geek in me is excited about 2005. Methane oceans, rovers on Mars and private spaceflight? There's a lot that's scary going on in the world today. But when it comes to SPACEFLIGHT -- 2005 is shaping up to be a banner year!

Kudos to the Voyager team!

Woohooo!

[Fjornir]

Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
Time's cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life's crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know

That the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

From all who tried out of history's tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.

For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

(c) 1975 - Leslie Fish

Re:Uh... really old?

[darkpurpleblob]

The article hadn't been updated for a while with new information (you'll see it's changed quite a bit since the /. post). There also appears to be some controversy about the topic. From Effects of a Tilted Heliospheric Current Sheet in the Heliosheath:

There is currently a controversy as to whether Voyager 1 has already crossed the Termination Shock, the first boundary of the Heliosphere (Krimigis et al. 2003; McDonald et al. 2003, Burlaga et al. 2003). An important aspect of this controversy is our poor understanding of this region.

...and they want to cut funding?!?!

[mjsottile77]

Is anyone else frustrated when you hear wonderful science like this being done, yet see that probes like this are slated to have their funding cut (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/voyager1-05a.html) ? For some reason, $4.2 million / year to operate them (ie, listen) seems unbelievably cheap for such a unique resource - not only are there only TWO probes out there (voyager 1 and 2), but to get others out to replace them would cost a whole ton more. ...In addition to having to wait another 20 or so years to get there.
Science just doesn't work when politics gets involved... :(

Re:What does it look like?

[pxl8]

Another example pic is here

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031120.html

This really makes me

[el_womble]

envious of Americans. We 'foriegners' give you guys A LOT of crap over wars, the environment, religion, guns etc (not that the British have a leg to stand on... we forget our history way too quickly), but the fact is that we don't have the balls to do anything like this anymore. Creating an object that can travel out of the Solar System is HUGE. It is an achievement that should stand out as a moment in history that we can be truely proud of: no-one got killed, you're not doing it for greed or wealth - its a pure scientific achievement.

Re:This really makes me

[Strontium-90]

On behalf of my fellow Americans, whether they like it or not, I'd just like to say thanks for your comment. Not that I had anything to do with Voyager or any other sattelites up there. In spite of some of the bad things we've done, I'm proud of my country (as I'm sure you are of yours), and I'm glad to see someone who doesn't judge all Americans based on a subset of our population.

Just like all countries, we do good things and we do bad things. We have good politicians and we have bad politicians. We have good people and we have bad people. So, thanks again for your levelheadedness, in all seriousness, I really do appreciate it.

Re:details

[FireFury03]

I don't think 'hot' is used to describe a location that is 7 billion miles from the sun

Actually, "hot" (or temperature) is really describing the energy of the particles in the area. Inside the solar system, the solar wind is moving at pretty high speeds - wikipedia suggests energies of 500 KeV. Using the Boltzmann Constant we get 500,000 x 11,605 = 5.8 billion degrees K (Sounds a lot - can some astrophysacists check my figures please :).

Once you get to the termination shock, the solar wind is moving at much slower sub-sonic speeds. Not sure what energies we're talking about here but they're going to be a *lot* lower... A bit of googling suggests He energies somewhere around the 5.2 KeV area (5,200 x 11,605 = 60 million degrees K).

Of course, although the matter may be "hot", there isn't much of it - the low density of matter means that there isn't much "heat" (compare - a cigarette is "hot" (it's gonna burn you) whereas a central heating radiator is not as hot but generates more "heat" (it'll warm your room better than the cigarette because it's total energy output is much greater, even though it's temperature is less)).

Disclaimer: IANAAP (Astro-Physacist) so the above could be crap, but that is how I understand it.