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New Signs Voyager Is Nearing Interstellar Space

Posted by samzenpus on from the great-beyond dept.

sighted writes "Yesterday, someone tweeting for the Voyager 2 spacecraft posted: 'Interesting. Compare my data 4 high-energy nucleons w V1's That increase is attracting attention!' Today, NASA says that scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion — that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system. Project scientist Ed Stone said, 'The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier.'"

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. hello? by ankhank · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am really hoping that once Voyager gets outside the local sun's bubble, it picks up a dial tone.

    After all, what makes more sense than modulating the background, and talking only to species smart enough to pick it up, by getting outside their local bubble?

    My guess is most species would have been a little slower to send a probe out that far, and grown up a bit more in the meantime.

    But maybe.

  2. Radiolab Episode on Voyager by three27 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I listened to a Radiolab episode several weeks ago, it originally aired in February 2012. However it definitely brought me up to speed on what they've been seeing out there. It's well worth the listen. Only about 20 minutes long.

    "Is There an Edge to the Heavens?"

  3. Re:And then ... by aevan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally be more amused if just after it breaches the boundary we lose contact with it...
    only for some amateur astronomer to detect a tiny object entering our solar system from the exact opposite side.

  4. Re:And then ... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd be more amused if it flies back and tries to contact the whales. Or perhaps if its speed slows more and more, only to eventually fall back towards the sun again.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  5. The whole thing is just staggering by Gordonjcp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It takes nearly 17 hours for the data to get back from Voyager 1 to us. Now here on Earth we rarely run into significant delays in communications caused by the speed of light - geostationary satellites are one example, and moonbounce is another. But even bouncing signals off of the moon only delays them by about two and a half seconds, and you need to transmit hundreds of watts into a very high gain aerial array to catch the tiny sniff of a signal that bounces back from the moon, 236000 miles away.

    Okay, car analogy. On a dark night out in the country, look at a distant piece of road and watch for a car. From a mile or two off, its 21W brake light bulb seems pretty tiny and faint. Voyager 1's microwave link puts out about 20W, too.

    Now I want you to imagine looking for that brake light when it is 11.3 thousand million miles away.