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It's Official: Voyager 1 Is an Interstellar Probe
astroengine writes "After a 35-year, 11-billion mile journey, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft left the solar system to become the first human-made object to reach interstellar space, new evidence from a team of scientists shows. 'It's kind of like landing on the moon. It's a milestone in history. Like all science, it's exploration. It's new knowledge,' long-time Voyager scientist Donald Gurnett, with the University of Iowa, told Discovery News. The first signs that the spacecraft had left the solar system's heliopause was a sudden drop in solar particles and a corresponding increase in cosmic rays in 2012, but this evidence alone wasn't conclusive. Through indirect means, scientist analyzing oscillations along the probe's 10-meter (33-foot) antennas were able to deduce that Voyager was traveling through a less dense medium — i.e. interstellar space." You can watch NASA's briefing on the probe's progress here.
NASA appears to have a nice visualization of the spacecraft's position and the particle flux...
http://eyes.nasa.gov/launch2.html?document=$SERVERURL/content/documents/voyager/voyager_exit.html
Voyager is nuclear.
It has about 10 years of power left.
Probably confirms the heliosphere isn't static and distorts; the edge has probably legitimately washed over Voyager that many times.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
What they are actually announcing is that the data shows that it left the solar system in August of 2012. The news over the last year was that they weren't sure if it had left yet. The news now is that it did leave, a little over a year ago.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Who knows, in a few billion years when the sun bakes this planet the golden record might be all that's left of us. Kind of like "The Inner Light" episode of Star Trek, but with less flute.
Should be pointed out that this is the first, not the only, man made object on a straight course for interstellar space. It will be joined not only by it's sister Voyager probe, but also the Pioneer 10 & 11 probes with their golden plaques, and the New Horizons mission with its CD. All in all, we're getting pretty good at littering the cosmos with our civilization's mementos.
If Voyager was sent far outside the orbital plane it couldn't have used gravity boost from the planets. Substantial speed disadvantage.
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Slashdot companion:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/09/12/1822239/its-official-voyager-1-is-an-interstellar-probe 12 September 2013
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/06/30/1318227/voyager-1-finds-unexpected-wrinkles-at-the-edge-of-the-solar-system 30 June 2013
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/20/1757256/voyager-1-officially-exits-our-solar-system 20 March 2013
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/12/04/039257/voyager-1-so-close-to-interstellar-space-that-we-can-taste-it 03 December 2012
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/12/07/2127247/voyager-1-exits-our-solar-system 07 December 2011
http://science.slashdot.org/story/05/09/26/1736216/voyager-1-sends-messages-from-the-edge 26 September 2005
http://science.slashdot.org/story/05/05/24/2334240/voyager-1-crosses-the-termination-shock 25 May 2005
http://science.slashdot.org/story/03/11/05/2019204/voyager-1-reaches-interstellar-space 05 November 2003