Voyager 1, So Close To Interstellar Space That We Can Taste It!

mphall21 writes "Voyager 1 is nearing the edge of the 'magnetic highway' of our solar system and scientists believe this is the final area the space probe must cross before entering interstellar space. The Voyager team infers this region is still inside of our heliosphere because the direction of the magnetic field has not changed. The direction of this field is expected to change when Voyager goes into interstellar space. 'Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway,' said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 'We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager.' Moving at 10.5 miles per second, the space probe is the most distant man-made object from Earth. The space craft has been in operation for 35 years and receives regular commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network."

Comments

America was king in the 60s and 70s

[blanchae]

IN the 60s and 70s, America was leading the world in space, the aero industries, cars, electronics, telecommunications and manufacturing. Now it is leading the world in its war effort and the false economy based on supplying wars to boost the economy. The biggests mistake that America made was "free-trade" and dropping their tarifs and duties. Countries like China keep their currency artificially low so that they can undercut American businesses with prices that cannot be beat. It has forced many industries to die a slow death. How can you compete with goods that are selling for 1/4 of the cost that it requires just for an American business to make it? You want to pump up the economy, bring back the duties and tarifs that protected America. America is in an economic war with China and is losing the battle. China is slowly driving America bankrupt. Who needs the biggest army when you can drain the economy.

Re:For those of us alive when this was launched,

[cayenne8]

I was thinking the same thing. I work with lots of republicans and even those people don't have anything good to say about g dubya.

I think in years, the Dems will think about the same thing with Obama...he's really no better than GW it seems...sure does support the same policies, but with an accelerated spending twist to it all.