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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."
This is truly a triumph of modern science and unfortunately we do not dream big like this anymore. We are limited to our own backyard. The moon, Mars, etc. Such a shame.
I was 17 when this thing launched...remember it well, all the hoop-de-doo about that gold disk. Either the Klingons will get it, or maybe the Borg?
What does interstellar space taste like?
Bubbly, as the water boils of your tongue.
The average density of the universe is about one proton per cubic meter. The vast majority of the visible universe is pristine vacuum. Plus, nearly every galaxy holds at its core a matter-disposal rip-heap of eternal safe-keeping.
Bear in mind that we now know there's a very small leak into the surrounding environment at around 60 nano-kelvin (*). Before we route too much of our crap to the galactic disposal unit, perhaps we should learn from our mistakes on the slimy blue marble and perform a rigorous environmental impact study on anthropogenic black-hole warming, just in case bumping it up to 61 nano-kelvins triggers a dark matter landslide. (By the "it's all about us, every time, and in every way" anthropic principle, every bulk coefficient of our local environment is fluttering around a precarious and exquisitely tuned value optimal to survival as we presently know it.)
(*) For simplicity I use the Hawking temperature for a solar mass black hole. From the equation at Wikipedia, this appears to scale inversely with mass. Possibly the right temperature involves division by another factor of 4 million to account for the correct mass of the galactic darth Timbit (local idiom for doughnut hole). I'm getting 15 femto-kelvins without a napkin. Let's not be brash and mess with this number anthropogenically without really thinking things through, to solve some minor problem with space-based pollution in some gossamer filigree of the pristine vacuum.
One would think it might be easier just to toss our junk in the direction of the Local Void. This, however, amounts to carting your garbage uphill.
Wikipedia: The Milky Way's velocity away from the Local Void is 270 kilometres per second (600,000 mph). Voids are hugely repulsive.
What's with all the complaints? How is this not news for nerds?
We thought the heliosphere should have ended earlier. It (surprisingly, without sarcasm) hasn't. It's explained within the same summary what the expected metrics for such a boundary should be (a change in the direction of the magnetic field), as well as a quantification of the closeness (that extra-solar particles are making forays into Voyager's sensors) of said boundary.
Add a dash of the fact that we are able to communicate through outer space with four-decades old technology, and I'm really not seeing what there is to bitch about.
Oh and the Mars rover? Yeah it's still being analyzed whether the "complex hydrocarbons" are actually organic compounds, just like how it was still being analyzed whether the timing glitch in the LHC was a violation of general relativity. That is speculation, it's not news (at least not for nerds).
This is truly a triumph of modern science and unfortunately we do not dream big like this anymore. We are limited to our own backyard. The moon, Mars, etc. Such a shame.
If the "we" in question is NASA, your assertion is true. However, if the "we" denotes the human race, nope, the dream is still on, and there are still people working towards achieving even greater goals. People in Brazil, in Japan, in India, in China are working on projects that may take us (and the "us" here means human race) further.
And you would be wrong as well. The fact is that NASA is still dreaming big. Putting man on the moon for 3 days is NOT that hard. It was that NASA planned it, and CONgress funded it, allowing them to get it done.
Now, NASA was striving to go to Mars and the moon in the 90's when the republicans gutted this effort. They made NASA stop work on things like Transhab and VASIMIR. The neo-cons wanted NASA spending to go into a different direction. Clinton opposed it as being short-sighted, but it was part of a deal to drop our deficit.
THis was followed with more gutting the ISS, post Columbia, but oddly, the most important piece of the ISS, the centrifuge, was gutted. This would tell us how to survive on the moon and mars. And yet, the neo-cons gutted this on item. Just amazing.
Then it was decided to kill off the shuttle (good, since it was costing too much money), and push for Constellation. However, again, CONgress, basically neo-cons, underfunded it so badly that the program was DOA. Thankfully, the 90's plan that NASA hatched to get private space going was funded for cargo only.
Now, Obama comes on and backs pushing private space, while killing off Constellation (it was dead anyways and just rotting). Yet, the neo-cons have worked their tails off to kill it and any attempt to leave the planet. They tried to kill the 1-2B for funding CCDev claiming a waste of money, while pushing the SLS for 20B telling NASA which contractors they would use. In particular, it was all of the contractors that were in CONgress critter's districts.
The neo-cons are STILL striving to kill off private space. In particular, NASA wants to fund PRIVATE fuel depot and various tugs for service. Some would be chemical, but others would be electrical (great for cargo). In addition, they want to get private space stations going, esp. Bigelow. These companies would then work together to put man on the moon and mars. NASA would simply lead the way, doing the hard R&D, while allowing private space to do the things that NASA has already R&D. With this approach, we will be on the moon by 2020, IFF the neo-cons are not allowed to gut NASA again.
NASA is dreaming big. It is one political party that is far more interested in keeping itself alive rather than worrying about our nation's future that is the problem.