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Voyager 1 Finds Unexpected Wrinkles At the Edge Of the Solar System
Voyager 1 has been close to the boundary of the solar system for quite a while; we've mentioned that the edge is near a few times before, including an evidently premature report in 2010 that Voyager had reached a distance so far from the sun that it could no longer detect solar winds and another in 2011 that it had reached an "outer shell" of solar influence. It turns out that the boundaries of the solar system are fuzzier than once anticipated; the L.A. Times is reporting that "Toward the end of July 2012, Voyager 1's instruments reported that solar winds had suddenly dropped by half, while the strength of the magnetic field almost doubled, according to the studies. Those values then switched back and forth five times before they became fixed on Aug. 25. Since then, solar winds have all but disappeared, but the direction of the magnetic field has barely budged." Also at Wired, which notes "That's hard to explain because the galaxy's magnetic field is thought to be inclined 60 degrees from the sun's field. No one is entirely sure what's going on. ... [It's] almost as if Voyager thought it was going outside but instead found itself standing in the foyer of the sun's home with an open door that allows wind to blow in from the galaxy."
Obligatory XKCD
Unexpected? You didn't think something 4.5 billion years old would have a few wrinkles?
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Well, when my gas needle doesn't move, it doesn't take long for me to realize that the darned thing got stuck. Especially when the cops tap on the window and politely ask why I'm parked on the interstate
The real path to male liberation
Maybe its the hardware starting to fail. This thing has been going for 30 years without a reboot, perhaps the sensors are starting to fail. Or maybe the signals are degraded. I mean, it already uses antiquated technology (your cellphone is 1000x more powerful) and nuclear energy is unpredictable. Maybe its time to put Voyager to pasture; we can build new, better and faster Voyager III probes running Linux (probably Android) and Solar Wind for propulsion.
Cue the Republitard-creationist onslaught of "this is proof of heaven" in 5..4..3...
Things are going to be very interesting in a few centuries...
Vejur will be back
Thought that thing would be long clear of this galaxy by now .How can it get to find anything if it aint neven left the galaxy ?
They have all properties but one thing? Can't we at least also exclude that the solar winds turned into chicken nuggets?
voyager has reached the edge of the petri dish.....
Someone else (who I think I saw here on Slashdot the last time Voyager was mentioned) had a great analogy for what we're likely seeing. I can't take credit for this at all, but I think it makes a lot of sense.
Suppose we're a small probe, making our way off an island, down the beach, and into the ocean. All we have is a wind-speed detector, and a water detector. As we near the water, waves start lapping over us. When they do, our wind-speed detector says "no wind", and our water detector says "we're wet." Have we entered the ocean yet? The answer is "not quite, but we're really darn close."
It doesn't seem surprising to me at all that the boundary neither perfectly uniform, nor stationary in time. I think we'll be in this transition band for a while.
Program Intellivision!
Imagine a giant penis flying towards your mouth, and there's nothing you can do about it. And you're like "Oh man, I'm gonna have to suck this thing", and you brace yourself to suck this giant penis. But then, at the last moment, it changes trajectory and hits you in the eye. You think to yourself "Well, at least I got that out of the way", but then the giant penis rears back and stabs your eye again, and again, and again. Eventually, this giant penis is penetrating your gray matter, and you begin to lose control of your motor skills. That's when the giant penis slaps you across the cheek, causing you to fall out of your chair. Unable to move and at your most vulnerable, the giant penis finally lodges itself in your anus, where it rests uncomfortably for 4, maybe 5 hours.
That's what the edge of the solar system is like.
RRadt's stubborn opinion 1n other lizard - In other to have regular fatal mistakes, BSD culminated in obsessives and the here, but what is states that there area. It is the of *BSD asswipes ops or any of the
We are but observers of a universe that doesn't talk. A comment in a previous article put it best (paraphrasing): I hope it smashes into a wall to leave us guessing.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Voyager simply reached the walls of the dome that encloses our world.
I'm happy that there is still an active remnant of the "cock & balls" NASA out there that is still exploring our universe and showing the world how it's done.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
pretty amazing that Voyager 1 is still sending scientific data back to earth. wow. didn't realize that the fuel on board can last so long.
How do we know it is the same magnetic field affecting V I?
Perhaps the assumption that the orientation of the magnetic field would change, is wrong?
Be sure to the subject line on posters...!
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
It just stopped moving one day.
Then my theory that we are just a form of entertainment like The Truman Show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/ to another form of life.
The center of the galaxy being the direction source is about as intuitive of an answer as saying a fire hose at the center of a hurricane is why you see rain coming from one direction when you are hundreds of kilometers away from the center. In other words, it would be the exact opposite of intuitive, considering such particles wouldn't make it here even if the galactic magnetic field were many, many times weaker than we thought.
These are incredibly weak influences that require unimaginable distances to have a cumulative effect. Like gas clouds that are essentially 99.9999% the same as "empty" space, but over tens of millions of miles you build up a black wall like a pointillist painting.
We are ants with a theory of 10 foot waves, and then are shocked to see one isn't glass smooth to the widh of our little foot.
tl;dr Shit be swirlin yo.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Any chance we are measuring hydrogen density that far out? Would be nice to know how well a bussard ramjet might work.
It reminds me of my kids:
Kids: "Are we there yet?"
Me: "No."
Kids: "Are we there yet?"
Me: "No! Stop asking!"
Kids: "Are we there yet?"
Me: "I don't know, we are hell fucking lost!"
Kids: "Dad, you shouldn't cuss."
Me: "Shuddup! I'm trying to concentrate!"
Table-ized A.I.
Reached the edge of the simulation?
-- Only information exists, the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
So you're telling me there's wrinkles outside Uranus ?
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
Have gnu, will travel.
Perhaps the solar system is simulated and Voyager 1 just reached the edge of this simulation LOL
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's obviously just wild speculation, but magnetic dark matter seems like it might be one possibility.
They hit the edge of the holodeck or matrix, lol.
Maybe voyager hit a wall like Truman in the Truman Show?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NNGxVt7h4
This behaviour would seem to fit Dr. Bhat's helical solar system model perfectly.
Secondary theory built on it predicts Voyager can never leave the solar system,
because it's unable to obtain the 70,000 km/hr escape velocity of the Sun-
(or equivalent speed based on the speed which the Sun orbits the galactic center).
HA HA @ NASA (and ilk) for dismissing him as a nutjob and now feigning ignorance.
It's the edge of the simulation that has not been rendered properly yet. Cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Not content with simply being the man-made object to travel farthest from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft recently entered a bizarre new region at the solar system’s edge that has physicists baffled. Their theories don’t predict anything like it.
Dr. Bhat produced a helical model of the solar system in 2008 that explains the current phenomena.
Helical Helix : Solar System a Dynamic Process
http://www.feandft.com/Helical%20Helix%20PDF%20format..pdf
The Newtonian based heliocentric model that is currently being taught assumes that the Sun is stationary.
More recent models based Dr. Bhat's work lend to the necessity of higher velocities to escape solar pull.
The helical models are very eloquent and intuitive when considering that all celestial bodies are in motion.
The following video (while not to scale or exact orientation) is a beautiful visualization of the helical model:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU
(please forgive the youtuber's misleading semantic differences, i.e "vortexs")
Purpose built industrial system. Potentially unreliable data being reported. OMG Stuxnet got to it.
70,000 km/hr at what location? There is no singular escape velocity for the Sun, there is an escape velocity for a given distance from the Sun. Current Voyager I is going more than 4 times the escape velocity at its current location. If you are saying the escape velocity from, say Earth in reference to the Sun, is 70,000 kph, then Voyager I is already going faster than the equivalent at its location. If you are saying the escape velocity at Voyager I's location is that value, then that represents a massive change in the gravitational potential compared to Newton's gravity and the planets would not be in the orbits we see them in with such a change.
Strong magnetic field to make sure nothing spaceship-like can leave the solar system. It's part of the aliens cage to keep us violent humans quarantined in the solar system forever. Wait till it gets to the edge of that foyer and hits the bars on the door! :-)
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Also the RTG has a half-life of 87 years. It has been going for about 36 years. Wiki says it will have enough power until 2025. Though it seems that the power will drop, and at what point certain systems start failing and which they are isn't clear. If the transmitter stops, it might as well be dead. So with about 12 years left it can travel about another 6,445,337,920 km before the lights turn off. A relatively short distance.
Of course it will still keep going (unless it hits something) after that. We just won't hear about it (unless it hits an advanced alien civilization with anger issues who doesn't appreciate us flinging our junk at them).