Posted on 12/14/2010 8:59:21 AM PST by Artemis Webb
WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outer edge of the solar system where wind from the Sun is no longer blowing outward, but sideways, the US space agency said.
The spacecraft was launched in 1977 and has since snapped images of Earth and other planets in the solar system and provided NASA with crucial information as it makes its long journey into outer space.
NASA researchers think Voyager 1 will leave the solar system and enter interstellar space, or the area in between the end of the Sun's influence and the next star system, in about four years.
For now, Voyager 1 is 17.4 billion kilometers (10.8 billion miles) from the Sun in "an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero," the space agency said.
"Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars."
NASA noticed that the solar wind's outward speed had slowed to zero back in June, but wanted to look at readings from Voyager 1 over the next four months to be sure.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
soon to be Veger?
Soon to be V’ger?
Whatever happened to the girl and guy after they became one? There was a monster explosion and then the Enterprise came into view.
Someone alert Steven Collins!!!!!
The gate is down.
The universe is one big “being”. The Solar system is one atom. Voyager is a cancer cell. Just a thought.
/mark
sounds like they are still in communication with it. thats astounding. i wonder how long it takes to get a message back?
Cruising along at just Warp 3 would mean we could catch it in just over half an hour.
It is about 12 billion miles out.
Warp 3 is 27 times the speed of light.
About 17 hours.
58,000 seconds, or 970 minutes, or 16.1 hours to send a signal to Vejur, and the same time for Vejur to talk back.
You can call that 16 light-hours if you like.
You’re using the TOS formula, the TNG formula would put Warp 3 at 38.94 times the speed of light. More bang for the buck with Geordi. Then again, I think Scotty was just underestimating all along!
“The universe is one big “being”. The Solar system is one atom. Voyager is a cancer cell. Just a thought”
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Far-out man. That is so psychedelic.
Can somebody please cue up a woodstock photo. And then pick up my cleaning and get my car washed.
Thanks a mil......
I believe Scotty admitted as much.
LOL
That’s on the old scale, on the new (TNG) one it’s about 39 times the speed of light.
And just think it ALL “evolved” in 3,4 or 5 or so billion years after a “Big Bang”.
As depicted at the end of a MIB movie I suspect we may be but a marble to a much larger thingy. Let’s hope were not knocked off the table and stepped on :-(
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