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Voyager 1 Passes 100 AU from the Sun
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, Voyager 1 passed 100 astronomical units from the sun as it continues operating after nearly 30 years in space. That is about 15 billion kilometers or 9.3 billion miles as it travels about 1 million miles per day. Scientists still hope it will find the edge of the solar system and get into interstellar space."
I wonder how long until it comes back carrying half the solar system with it looking for it's maker?
My humor is probably your flamebait
How many more AUs to scientists think Voyager still has to travel before it reaches the edge, or do we not have a good estimation of that distance?
If I'm a space science noob does that make me a "Universal Noob"?
Yeah.
Kudos JPL.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
IIRC the earth is about 8 minutes from the sun, so 100AU would be around 800 minutes, right?
http://g-fav.blogspot.com/2006/07/hey-linguists-a
(and now I must wait 49 seconds to amend it, ferfuxsake. slowdowncowboyslowdowncowboyslowdowncowboy)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
While your post was nice, I wouldn't describe it as a "great blog post". Or did you miss a link? :-)
I think that exceeds the maximum RTT for TCP.
This is a good place to mention Luis Cupido's web site. He's actually managed to pick up the Voyager 1 signal on a 5.6-meter dish, using a lot of DSP-fu and maybe -- you be the judge -- a bit of wishful thinking.
A fascinating, if somewhat slow-loading, page.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Considering the original expectations of the probe, we are getting amazing data! When launched, no one expected there to be any signal at all being transmitted after this long. This is a major feat of engineering.
Technology is interesting. It has taken 30 years to move a record this far into space. Compare that to an MP3, which can be streamed that same distance in only half a day!
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
30 years without changing the batteries *AND* 30 years without exploding. Can I get one of those?
Layne
Of course, ping is ICMP not TCP and thus is not subject to this problem. Oops! But the Voyager web configuration panel won't work!
Scientists still hope it will find the edge of the solar system and get into interstellar space."
The alternative is for the Sun to pull it back.
To sail on a dream through eternal nighttime of space To ride on the crest of a wild raging storm To work in the service of life and the living In search of the answers to questions unknown To be part of the movement and part of the growing Part of beginning to understand
Aye, Voyager, the places you've been to The things that you've shown us The stories you tell Aye, Voyager, I sing to your spirit The men who have served you So long and so well
a tip of the prop to the late John Denver
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Apologies, my units are off. I did intend to write 29 HOURS. Alas, stupid fingers.
Informatus Technologicus
I wish that "vger6" guy would stop logging onto the same CS server I am on.
Really throws the game when he gets all choppy and stuff....
The point is, the two Voyagers are the last of the first generation of robotic interstellar spacecraft. Interstellar 2.0 will use ion drive, nuclear electric, solar sails, magnetic sails, and other exotic propulsion technologies. Interstellar 3.0 will get useful paylods to other planetary systems, within the lifetime of some slashdot readers. Cost? Less than the Shuttle/Space Station welfare system. Payoff? Priceless! Starflight without Warp Drive Hydrogen Ice Spacecraft for Robotic Interstellar Flight
not sure how much data they are getting from it now, but they are tracking it. there is an observed anomaly in its current trajectory that is not well understood. Unfortunately I can't find a good link on it, but the issue is this:
the craft's current rate of acceleration as it heads away from the sun is not consistent with current gravitional laws.
From what I've read, it is considered likely that the issue is just some exotic side effect of the conventional physics inside the space craft itself (like waste heat shedding off the craft's antenna exerting a small force on the craft and altering its trajectory slightly). It's possible though that it is an indication of a hole in our existing understanding of gravity.
Not sure what else the craft might be doing. Probably not much. But that little anomaly is pretty interesting.
In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. -T.S. Eliot
The article states that Voyager 1 is using radioisotope thermoelectric generators to power the flight... not knowing what these were, I went to Wikipedia, which told me that they were used to generate a few hundred watts or less, and seem to get hot. My question from this is the application in to on-Earth areas. For instance, why aren't radioisotope thermoelectric generators used in Data Centers? Or Factories? Or Office Towers? Or on farms? Can't we take a few hundred of these, bury them in a sub-basement, and start generating our own power? I want my space age power, damnit. Any rocket scientists out there know the cost of one of these suckers?
Heh... You must work for NASA :)
To be exact, it would be 50,034.6s = 833m 54.6s = 13h 53m 54.6s . . . one way.
Or, 100,069.2s = 1,667m 49.2s = 27h 47m 49.2s roundtrip . . . assuming a perfect vaccum and no processing time on both ends.
Of course, these calculations are based on static distances and it would require a bit more tweaking to figure out the exact numbers to account for the delta in distance up to this minute and the delta in distance during the sending of a signal.
I wonder whether there are plans for launching a new, more powerful, more sophisticated aircraft with the same purpose. After 30 years of progress we should be able to do much better, shouldn't we ? (To be honest I suspect that modern technology is less reliable than 30 years ago - the complexity is killer - but still we have to try)
Couldn't there be a very low power engine of some kind, just enough to provide a minimal thrust for, lets say, a decade. You don't need a lot of thrust in vacuum. Even small but constant acceleration should be sufficient to eventually achieve very high speed and perhaps even outrun the older spacecraft.
Yeah, but the RIAA'd be all up on your arse.
Is Voyager 1 providing any useful information any more, besides the becon signal and trajectory information? Wasn't there a Voyager 2?
I'm curious what's failed on the probe so far. After 30 years, something has to have died.
It is because its heading toward a black hole.....but why has no-one seen it? I'll ask Holly. Holly, why has no one noticed that Voyager is heading into a black hole?
Holly: Well, the thing about a black hole - it's main distinguishing feature - is it's black. And the thing about space, the color of space, your basic space color - is it's black. So how are you supposed to see them?
Not quite. The supposed anomaly of gravity can be measured with the spin stabilized pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, since those practically never have to use their thrusters to adjust their attitude. The voyager spacecraft on the other hand are 3 axis stabilized with hydrazin thrusters, which they have to use every now and then to keep their radio dish pointed at earth. Their useful science comes from the data they gather about magnetic fields, charged particles etc.
This is probably a dumb question. But here goes.
How is it that Voyager (and other probes) is able to avoid crashing into obstacles (eg: asteroids, commets, planets etc)?
Do they have some kind of navigation system that can sense an object coming towards it and alter its course?
One would think that in 30 years and so many billion miles, it must be *VERY* lucky to have avoided any obstacles in its path?
Can anyone explain?
According to this article Voyager 1 already passed the heliopause at 85 AU. So which edge are we looking for now?
Space and Computers.
Umm, if you read the article, you'll note that it's not that the Voyagers aren't subject to the anomaly, it's that it's too difficult to measure, since you'd have to cancel out the effect of the thruster use.
Space is big. Really big.
Slagborr
If, as seems possible, this amateur radio astronomer can detect signals from Voyager 1, it may also be possible for amateur radio astronomers to detect the presence of very faint signals coming from the furthest objects in the solar system, as the iron within them cuts through the charged particle stream of the interstellar winds, which is all you need to generate a radio wave.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Space is VERY empty.
It's only slightly less non-empty when you're real close to a star or other big mass of stuff. Right now Voyager is the farthest from a star that any man-made object has ever reached, so the chances of it hitting into stuff are nearly zero.
But to answer your original question though, no, it doesn't have any kind of stuff-avoidance ability. Even if they had designed it to have that ability, by now it wouldn't have any power left to do that.
I respond to your sigs
I wonder if it'll ever find life, and what the scenario in that case would look like.
Maybe floating down from the skies with a note inside...
"Looks like you lost something, but jeez, it was hard to track you down with more planets than its schematic shows!"
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Only one more AU until it passes 100 AU from Earth.
The reason it hasn't run into anything is because space is basically empty. There's very little out there to hit and what is there is a long way from anything else. So, not it's not *VERY* lucky to have not hit anything. If it had hit something, it would have been very *UN*lucky.
All the data sent back will be lost by NASA anyways.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
Too bad the CDP1802's architect, Joe Weisbecker, didn't live to see his microprocessor become the first in interstellar space. Coincidentally, this month also marks the 30th anniversary of his Popular Electronics article on the COSMAC ELF; Nuts and Volts magazine is covering it.
Ha ha only serious. The reason you can't buy the golden record as a multimedia CD-ROM (or anything else) is because the music and images on it are under copyright, and the selections were only released to NASA for use by alien audiences only. :p
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
You insensitive clod! He did to work for NASA, but after the Mars incident he's been unemployed.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
breaking the previous record of 99.99999AU, also set by Voyager I... the day before.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
100 AU over 30 years. Seems to me I've gone almost as far in the same period of time.
Quick math :
-The earth travels (about) 3.14 AU / year
- 3.14 * 30 = 94.2 AU over 30 years
(note: I make math errors all the time. No doubt someone will correct this one if its wrong)
Why isn't voyager faster than the earth given it started off going as fast as the earth, and quickly accelerated from that point during takeoff?
100 AU is nowhere near the Oort cloud. Sedna's orbit is highly eccentric ranging from around 92 au out to around 850 au. The Oort cloud is even further out at 50,000 au.
Are you saying it's big even compared to the walk to the chemist?
ah heck. It is all relative.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If I've ever learned anything from about radiation exposure from low-budget Japanese films, I think that the missus would be rather pleased...
Yup. Light takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, and Voyager 1 is now out 100 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, so it's an 800 minute one-way trip, or 1600 minutes round trip.
There's a nice article on the flight team from a few years ago here.
Taking an educated stab in the dark (I've done satellite operations for NASA, but not on Voyager), I'm guessing that you've got a couple that deal with trajectory (where it is in space), one that handles the scheduling of time on the Deep Space Network downlink stations and queing command activities on the spacecraft itself, and maybe 3 that handle sustaining engineering on vehicle hardware systems like electrical, communications, attitude control (including momentum wheels and propulsion), and science instruments. Maybe 1 or 2 that handle the onboard computer and flight software. Finally, probably 1 or 2 maintain the ground data retention system and support workstations, plus a manager for the whole shebang.
It's also almost certain that most or all of these 10 people work on other JPL projects, too.
Worst...sig...ever!
that it tried to get onto my Quake server?
We were trying to fire a game up, and on comes Voyager 1, with its 26 hour ping time. We all laughed and then booted it off.
I wonder how long until it reaches the next Starbucks?