Voyager 2 Set to Reach Termination Shock

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "A computer model simulation developed at UC Riverside has predicted that in late 2007 to early 2008, the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the termination shock, the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock, located at 7-8.5 billion miles from the sun, the solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound. The boundary of the termination shock is not fixed, however, but wobbly, fluctuating in both time and distance from the sun, depending on solar activity. Because of this fluctuation, the spacecraft is also predicted to cross the boundary again in middle 2008. The article abstract is available from The Astrophysical Journal."

Comments

Re:And then what?

[mabhatter654]

this is the kind of thing scientists predict all the time and observe in lab experiments... but this device is actually GOING to the edge of a solar system... it's someplace human made instruments haven't been. Science at it's very purest form, simply going and observing something nobody has actually seen before.

Why do you go on vacation to foreign places.. aren't postcards and Discovery channel good enough? It's a whole lot different to say "we were there" than guessing what it would be like from a long distance.

Re:And then what?

[theStorminMormon]

Other than "we sent something outside the solar system again", does this mean anything? Will we get any new data about "termination shock" or whatnot? Also, and stop me if I'm wrong, but if the probe is going outwards and the boundary isn't perpetually expanding it can't really cross the boundary twice, can it? It has to be once or thrice.

Once to get outside the boundary, twice if the boundary expands and catches back up with it, and thrice to once again get outside the boundary.

Just a thought.

Re:cool

[zippthorne]

No. It will have very little effect on the actual spacecraft itself. However it will provide invaluable data (being only the second instrument ever to make in situ measurements there) to confirm and help update our models.

No matter what happens, it can't negatively affect the mission, because it is the mission. (well part of the mission, anyway) As a useless analogy, if Space Aliens came down and ray-gunned all of SETI's equipment, you wouldn't say that SETI's mission would be negatively impacted, would you?