Slashdot Mirror
Voyager 1 Officially Exits Our Solar System
An anonymous reader writes "A new study released today (abstract) indicates that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has become the first man-made object to exit our solar system. Instrumentation data sent back to NASA indicate the historic event likely occurred on August 25, 2012, evidenced by drastic changes in radiation levels as the craft ventured past the heliopause. What remains to be seen, however, is whether Voyager 1 has actually made it to true interstellar space, or whether it has entered a separate, undefined region beyond our solar system. Either way, the achievement is truly monumental. 'It's outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that. We're in a new region,' said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. 'And everything we're measuring is different and exciting.'"
Update: 03/20 20:44 GMT by S : Reader skade88 points out that the JPL Voyager team is not so sure: "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. In December 2012, the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called 'the magnetic highway' where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed." So we'll probably be hearing about this again in a couple years.
The edge of the solar system is considered by many to be the Oort cloud. That's about 1 light year from the Sun, and Voyager is not even remotely close.
The Voyager project's chief scientist says not just yet: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-107 Also, here's a fairly recent video lecture he gave on the topic that gives some good details: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures_archive.cfm?year=2012&month=9
Saddle up: Riding with Robots
The galaxies are not moving relative to us, faster than the speed of light away from us. The space between us and those galaxies is growing, cumulatively, faster than the amount of time it would take light to cross that space. The Galaxies themselves may actually even be moving towards us. This is the cumulative effect of the very tiny expansion of the universe compounded by vast... nearly unfathomable distances. Eventually if the expansion continues, we'll not even be able to see nearby stars. But, of course, we'll all be dead long before that happens.