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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.
Vejur will be back
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.
Really?
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.
Yeah, sure. Cell phones that need rebooting every few days?
Cue the Republitard-creationist onslaught of "this is proof of heaven" in 5..4..3...
Nice straw man.
Now why don't you go find the Wizard of Oz so he can give you a brain.
Better yet, find the Witch so she can set you on fire.
voyager has reached the edge of the petri dish.....
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.
I would skip a few probes and go straight for Voyager 6. But be careful not to lose the "transmit data" command on some forgotten tape, or we're all screwed.
Ezekiel 23:20
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!
Our galaxy is 120,000 light years across. Voyager is currently traveling 38,100 miles per hour, or 1/17600 the speed of light. As such, just to cross our galaxy, it would take 211.2 Million years. The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.54 Million light years away. Or if it were pointed towards Andromeda (it's not), it would take 44.7 Billion years to get there. Even traveling at Voyager speeds to Proxima Centari (our nearest star) would take 17600 years to get there. To recap, space is big... Really big.
Thirty four characters live here.
You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Voyager is currently traveling 38,100 miles per hour, or 1/17600 the speed of light. As such, just to cross our galaxy, it would take 211.2 Million years.
If you tried to cross our galaxy, you'd first have to compensate for the orbital speed of the Sun around the galactic center. You'd need a lot more speed to do that. (It's the same problem as with getting a solar probe close enough to the Sun.)
Ezekiel 23:20
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.
Would someone PLEASE get this heap to a speed shop! The heat death of the universe will be here before we get to the nearest ice cream hop. Jeeze. Already I need a shave and a haircut.
Motor skills are controlled from the back of the brain, not from the front.
everyone knows how much the glans resembles an apple
Dude, get that checked out by a Doctor, seriously, that sounds problematic.
You do realize that, until very recently, all these creationists were split rather equally between both dems and reps. (The gay marriage and abortion issue pushed white evangelists into the Reps side.) The black population is over 50% creationist (and 90+ are dems) and almost 50% of those who classify themselves as liberal are creationists.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/05/who-are-the-creationists-by-the-numbers/#.UdBCoDu1H4s
Another thing to think about is that all creationists are not the same. There are they young earthers as well as those who accept that the earth is billions of years old but who think that God created life (and accept minor evolutionary change).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
How far to Milliway's? There is enough time for that, right?
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
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
Here here, not. :)
How do we know it is the same magnetic field affecting V I?
If you mean the Milky Way, that is our galaxy. As far as if there is enough time, that's all relative. If you're fine with 17,600 years to get to our next closest star then yes we have all the time in the world. If we built a new probe with the fastest engines we have today (rather than 1977 era engines), we could get there in around 10,000 years instead. As far as getting somewhere of significance outside of our own solar system within a single human lifetime, we are still a long ways away from pulling that off.
Thirty four characters live here.
whoooosh
that's the sound of everyone else heading to the restaurant at the end of the universe
After some further thought, an object traveling at Voyager speeds could reach Andromeda in 4 billion years, regardless of what direction it is traveling. This is more due to the significant velocities of both Milky Way and Andromeda though rather than Voyager or another object traveling at Voyager like speeds launched from Earth.
Thirty four characters live here.
Not the Milky Way. Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I"m trying to remember if we're going faster than our sun at the moment, or slower. Ah, well, not finding a ready reference, however a couple of back of the envelope calculations should work. The planet is in an elliptical orbit around the sun, dictated by gravity, and with no appreciable forces of acceleration affecting the planet that are not also affecting the path of the sun. (Yes that can happen, consider the possibility that the orbit of the earth passes through one of the jets of a supernova, where the jet does not directly interact with the sun. However we'd probably notice something like that, or cease to notice anything else.) Neither do we appear to be generating a field or having any reaction sources that act as a drive. I'm not suggesting that we won't ever find such, but I do not expect that we will, as I think that if the planet were doing this, or affected by such, that again, we would be able to detect it, and the best information I'm aware of doesn't indicate that we have detected such a phenomena.
In this orbit, we vary from leading the sun in it's orbit of the galaxy by approximately one AU, to trailing the sun by approximately the same distance, over the period of a year. An AU is approximately 150 billion meters, so we're looking at an orbit approximately 300 billion meters from trail, to lead. At trail and lead points in the orbit, the speed of the planet around the galaxy matches that of the sun, so the points of interest are where the orbit crosses the plane perpendicular to the orbit of the sun intersecting the line between the sun and the galactic center. These two points are inflection points in the change in apparent acceleration due to gravity where as we are moving ahead of the sun our acceleration starts decreasing, and as we move to trailing the sun our acceleration is increasing.
Now you can apply some trig to get the numbers, but it's just as easy to work out the various speeds by noting that in 6 months, the planet earth travels 300 billion meters relative to the earth, and starts with a relative velocity of zero. At 3600 seconds per hour, 24 hours per day, and 182.5 days per half year, that means that we have 15,768,000 seconds to work with. 300,000,000,000 meters divided by 15,768,000 seconds means that we on average travel 19,025.875, call it 19,026 meters per second over that half a year. To start at zero, and end at zero, that means that at the inflection points, were traveling som 38,051 meters per second faster, or slower than the sun. Call it 38 kps. (approximate) The speed of light is some 300,000 kps, so our change in velocity is just over 1/10000'th of the speed of light for that half of the orbit, or twice that 1/5000th of the speed of light for the entire orbit.
Consider the estimated distance out from the center of the galaxy that we are at, and the fact that in the presumed lifespan of the sun, just over 4.5 billion years, calculations show that the sun has made some 12 orbits of the galaxy, (i.e. approximately 300 million years per orbit) and it's trivial to show that you really don't need to 'compensate' for the orbital speed of the sun around the galactic center.
To add to the interest, I'll leave it as an exercise of the reader to discover what the change in velocity for Mercury, and Jupiter (starting point, mercury has an orbit of approx .4 au, and a period of approx 88 days, while Jupiter has an orbit of just over 5 au, and a period of 4331 days, or just under 12 years.) Which you should see that having an orbit closer to the sun results in having a _lower_ change in velocity relative to the sun, not a higher. i.e. to put a solar probe into an orbit closer to the sun, you actually need to slow down the orbital velocity of the probe, not increase it's speed. You do Accelerate the probe, however that acceleration is 'negative' with respect to it's existing orbital speed about the sun.
You never know...
And yes, I've glossed over quite a bit here. The change in velocity will also be affected by the angle of the plane of the orbit of the planet wrt the sun, compared to the plane of the orbit of the sun to the galactic core (i.e. that change in velocity will be zero should the plane of the orbit of the earth intersect the plane perpendicular to the orbit of the sun intersecting the line from sun to galactic core) and the fact that the sun's orbit of the galaxy is not co-incident with the plane of the ecliptic of the galaxy. (bit of a wobble, above and below, which some people think may have something to do with the period of global extinction level events.)
You never know...
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.
Plutonium lasts for quite sometime, however yes the radioisotope thermoelectric generators on board are losing wattage year over year as that plutonium decays. In 2 years, the probe will no longer have the power necessary to record it's data for transmission, and in 12 years will no longer have the power necessary to run any of its scientific instruments. It's main systems will still be able to run for decades though due to much lower wattage requirements, but without being able to provide any readings, record data or transmit it back it will be essentially dead.
Thirty four characters live here.
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.
IIUC, Voyager I has long outlasted it's expected lifetime. (But I don't think that this looks like equipment failure. It's just that that's not a stupid argument.)
FWIW, I'm not sure that we can currently build things as durable as Voyager was. The circuits have gotten smaller, faster, and less power hungry...but that's not the same as durable at all. If you want durable there's a lot to be said for thick leads, e.g. And we haven't been keeping our skills up in that area. (Anything local and it's cheaper to replace it with something smaller and faster that does the same job with less power drain.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You left out the Deists, who believe that God created the universe and left it to evolve. (IIRC they never actually said that God created life, and they didn't talk about evolution, but then they were prominent before Darwin.)
OTOH, I'm not sure how many Diests are around anymore.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
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.
You must be joking. Why on earth would you use a complicated OS like Linux for something that just has to do one very particular job? And then have some hacker take control of it because they found a vulnerability in one of the services the probe was never intended to use anyway? Or the software crash because of some mysterious bug in some library written by some guy in his parents' basement 10 years ago?
I remember video players (tapes, early discs) that would start playing pretty much immediately after you switched them on. Nowadays, you switch on a DVD/blueray player and you get "Welcome" for about 20 seconds. Then the thing crashes every now and then so it needs a reboot. Yep, it's running some flavor of Linux. If you need reliability and efficiency, I'll take 70's technology any time.
Just program the thing directly for whatever it needs to do, using proprietary code. The code will be 1% the size and a lot more efficient.
(Not that I don't like Linux, by the way. It's great for general purpose equipment where you might actually need all of those capabilities)
Well, I understand your point but there are levels of ignoring evidence. Science does not disprove the existence of God but I think < /sarc> that science has proved that the earth is just a wee bit older than 10,000 years.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I'm an atheist so I'm not shilling for creationists of any stripe. There are levels of ignorance and faith and equating a young earther with a deist or someone who believes that God stepped in creating life and man doesn't help things as well as makes for an inaccurate evaluation of the situation.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
"?Hardware failure" was my first thought, too. It's done well, but everything decays eventually. Maybe it has reached its 'eventually' point.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Well, I understand your point but there are levels of ignoring evidence. Science does not disprove the existence of God but I think that science has proved that the earth is just a wee bit older than 10,000 years.
Yes, there is unquestionable evidence for the world being much older, just as there is unquestionable evidence for an evolution that wasn't designed by any rational or compassionate being. Appendix, wisdom teeth, a retina where the nerves endings are on the wrong side and makes it harder to see, exposed nerves, reflexes that makes people sneeze against the sun - I could go on and on, and that's just for humans! There are just so many errors and design flaws that claiming there's been any creator involved seems ridiculous and requires strong evidence.
Science can certainly not disprove a deity, but the evidence is strong for none being involved during our evolution. Seen from a freethinking point of view, it's about as preposterous to claim that we were created as the earth being 6000 years young. There's really no big degree of difference between the two, seen from the outside.
OTOH, I'm not sure how many Deists are around anymore.
I think they mostly became atheists, that the universe existed entirely without some form of divine creator was too radical for the time. But in practice it means exactly the same, if there's no god or an absent god there's no point in churches, priests or prayers, no heaven or hell, either way there's simply no point in religion. For all practical intents and purposes a deist lives life exactly like an atheist, probably even more than an agnostic who might hedge their bets and not offend god because it might be true. And really here we're heading into foggy territory anyway, Big Bang violates pretty much every law of nature as we know it. God? Nature? Big question mark? Doesn't really matter, if there's no god here and now it's just for the history books.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They hit the edge of the holodeck or matrix, lol.
Maybe they Died off?
Except for the transmission itself, which will at least allow us to track it and probably measure the effect of gravity.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
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.
Purpose built industrial system. Potentially unreliable data being reported. OMG Stuxnet got to it.
Dude, get that checked out by a Doctor, seriously, that sounds problematic.
Possibly not the one into a blue box, but the holographic one.
Won't the Andromeda galaxy collide with the Milky Way Galaxy much earlier than 44B years?
Seems prudent to just wait the whole thing out.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I think you'll find a lot of Christians identify closer with that than with any strict or literal interpretation of the Christian creation mythology. This is especially true of scientists who are also religious, having to reconcile their profession with the dogma that comes with their beliefs.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
That's really comforting to know as any alien species that doesn't know how to break the light barrier who is hell-bent on the conquest of earth would have to really, really, really, REALLY, REALLY want to get our home planet REALLY bad.
It doesn't have to be proprietary - the only thing that gets you is privacy. Other than that - I'd have to agree with you!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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).