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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....
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
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
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
Heh... You must work for NASA :)
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.
Umm... Read more fellow. They use Plutonium... They are radioactive and could be used to make at least a dirty bomb if not an outright fission device.
They uses some in the old Soviet Union at some remote sites but they used Strontium 90 which while it will still kill you can not be used to make fission devices.
Not something I would want in my basment but dang handy in space and maybe some remote applications like ocean monitoring or even antarctica.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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?
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.
Damned near everything is dead, and it's sending back only the most basic scientific information to conserve energy levels that are already well beyond their expected date of exhaustion.
Umm, no.
I read an article not long ago (that I can't be bothered to find again) stating that only a small percentage of its original devices of science have worked at all since the 80s.
The Scan platform was turned off in the early 21st century. That's when cameras were turned off to save power.
See http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/thirty.html and scroll to the end of the page.
VOYAGER 1
1998 DOY 316 - Reduction in Scan Platform power - preserve UVS and Elevation Actuator temperature (+11.0 W)
* WA Vidicon Heater OFF (+5.5 W)
* NA Vidicon Heater OFF (+5.5 W)
2002 - Terminate UVS operations - turn-off all Scan Platform loads (43.9 W). Date expected to change.
* WA Electronics Replacement Heater OFF (+10.5 W)
* IRIS Replacement Heater OFF (+7.8 W)
* NA Electonics Replacement Heater OFF (+10.5 W)
* Azimuth Actuator Supplemental Heater OFF (+3.5 W)
* UVS Power OFF (+2.4 W)
* UVS Replacement Heater OFF (+2.4 W)
* Azimuth Coil Heater OFF (+4.4 W)
* Scan platform slewing power OFF (+2.4 W)
So, until 2002, V1 was used for searching UV sources among the stars, among other things. However, that doesn't tell much, since most of the work is done with particle, plasma and wave detectors and those will be working well into the 2020's.
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.
You've just shown that you have no understanding of this issue. For example: your 145,000 tons of uranium is an isotope with a half-life of about 4 billion years. (The small amount of U235 has a half life of 700 million years, and doesn't change the overall total much.) Thorium is similar: it has a half-life of 14 billion years.
An RTG is filled with plutonium 238, which has a half life of 88 years, so it decays about 49 million times as fast as U238. So the total radioactivity of all that coal-based uranium is similar to that of 3 kilograms of Pu238, which is only enough fuel to provide a few kilowatts of RTG power. So it's no wonder environmentalists bitch and moan about a few kilograms of material: that few kilograms is about as radioactive as the total annual emissions of the entire coal industry.
So bottom line, to provide their electrical energy from RTGs, each household would need to manage an amount of radioactivity which is a significant fraction of the grand total emitted by all US coal burning plants. Coal plant heavy metal emissions are dangerous, but mainly because heavy metals are toxic chemicals, not because of radioactivity.
A more practical problem is the fact that Pu238 is outrageously hard to collect and there are only a few kilograms in existence worldwide. Other kinds of radioactive waste isn't generally hot enough to create a useful amount of work; otherwise, they would have left it in the reactor longer to generate more power.
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?
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.