Voyager 1 has entered a new region of space, sudden changes in cosmic rays indicate

AGU ^ | 3/20/13

[LibWhacker]

WASHINGTON – Thirty-five years after its launch, Voyager 1 appears to have travelled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere, according to a new study appearing online today.

The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun and its wind of energetic particles, and which is thought to be enclosed, bubble-like, in the surrounding interstellar medium of gas and dust that pervades the Milky Way galaxy.

On August 25, 2012, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft measured drastic changes in radiation levels, more than 11 billion miles from the Sun. Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays trapped in the outer heliosphere, all but vanished, dropping to less than 1 percent of previous amounts. At the same time, galactic cosmic rays – cosmic radiation from outside of the solar system – spiked to levels not seen since Voyager's launch, with intensities as much as twice previous levels.

The findings have been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

"Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He calls this transition boundary the "heliocliff."

In the GRL article, the authors state: "It appears that [Voyager 1] has exited the main solar modulation region, revealing [hydrogen] and [helium] spectra characteristic of those to be expected in the local interstellar medium."

However, Webber notes, scientists are continuing to debate whether Voyager 1 has reached interstellar space or entered a separate, undefined region beyond the solar system.

"It's outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that," Webber said. "We're in a new region. And everything we're measuring is different and exciting."

[Norm Lenhart]

Glad it’s still out there being seen.

[Future Snake Eater]

Wow, I never even considered people would have that reaction. I was just always genuinely perplexed as to why Kirk and...7th Heaven Dad were so smitten by her baldness.

[cripplecreek]

Here are where all the Apollo capsules are currently located.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apolloloc.html

[Zeneta]

I’m somewhat mathematically challenged so forgive me.

I’m trying to get a handle on the speed of the “radio” signal vs. the speed of light.

[cripplecreek]

My grandfather had business dealings with Jim McDivitt after he left the space program. I used to go with granddad to McDivitt’s office to be awestruck.

[Norm Lenhart]

I was amazed. I was like 13-14ish when it came out (79or so wasn’t it?) and clearly remember the women in our fairly pious little hollow being frazzed over it. How they got to some kind of immoral nudity place I’ll never know. But they did. Of course they always wore headcovering/kerchifs to (our Catholic) church so....

Glad I’m not there anymore ;)

[hattend]

If you noticed her costume, they weren’t looking at her bald head.

I know I wasn’t at the time. Persis Kambatta (sp) was hawt!

[BobL]

All I know is that there isn’t much of anything out there. It’s like really, really, empty.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

What is needed is a “brute force” probe, that is basically an armor plated ball with an engine out the back. And not just any engine, but an advanced ion drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_drive

It would be the first probe designed entirely for the exploration of deep space. Once outside the solar system, the armor plates would open, so the equipment inside would not have been degraded by radiation and particles within the solar system.

[bravo whiskey]

and commierado has entered another dimension, the libtard dimension where up is down, right is left, right is wrong.

[Future Snake Eater]

Persis Kambatta (sp) was hawt!

Maybe with hair...

[Boogieman]

“Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays trapped in the outer heliosphere, all but vanished, dropping to less than 1 percent of previous amounts. At the same time, galactic cosmic rays – cosmic radiation from outside of the solar system – spiked to levels not seen since Voyager’s launch, with intensities as much as twice previous levels.”

Keep in mind that, when NASA says “energetic particles”, or “cosmic rays”, they are talking about charged plasmas in space. So really, they are saying that the craft has passed the boundary of the plasma bubble surrounding the Sun, and is travelling into the surrounding plasma, which our Sun’s plasma emissions shield us from.

Now, also keep in mind that mainstream physicists maintain that there is no charged plasma medium permeating space, since that would necessitate admitting that there must be electomagnetic forces transmitted through that medium, which the standard cosmologies don’t account for. Yet, NASA can’t help but admit that this plasma medium exists, because Voyager detects it as soon as it exits our heliosphere.

In other words, they are using deceptive language to pretend that their data is not confirming a huge hole in the standard cosmology that they don’t want to deal with.

[Boogieman]

Boy, they must have really hated David Lynch’s Dune movie, where the Bene Gesserits not only shaved their heads but also their eyebrows!

[Boogieman]

“I’m trying to get a handle on the speed of the “radio” signal vs. the speed of light.”

They’re exactly the same, because radio waves and light waves are just different frequencies of photons. All photons travel at the speed of light (in a vaccum), whether it’s visible light, microwaves, radio, infrared, etc.

[Norm Lenhart]

It’s settled science. disregard any new data. Works for global warming. Why not cosmology?

[kitchen]

Solve for x:

11,000,000,000 miles divided by 186,000 miles/second = x seconds

[Boogieman]

My theory is that, at the rate we develop technology, anything we throw at deep space is just going to get overtaken by something faster that we invent in the future, before it ever gets anywhere interesting. Which is why the premise of Star Trek: TMP, with Voyager returning to Earth was so silly. When the Enterprise went on her maiden voyage, she would have passed by wherever Voyager was puttering along at in a few minutes’ time.

[Eaker]

Sometimes I think Voyager will be sending messages back to a world reduced to scavengers killing each other with sticks for a potato.

You are a very wise man my friend.

[LibWhacker]

Boogieman is correct. AM radio waves, shortwave radio waves, TV, FM, radar, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays comprise the full range of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

All electromagnetic radiation, whether it is the dangerous gamma rays and X-rays, or visible light, or whether it's radio waves, etc., all propagate at the same speed; namely, the speed of light.

The range of these wavelengths (the range, not the radiation itself) is called the electromagnetic spectrum (see graphic below).

Visible light; i.e., the EM radiation our eyeballs can actually see, is only a very tiny slice out of the full range of electromagnetic wavelengths. When you look up at the night sky, it's like looking at the universe through a skinny straw. You see the visible light, but can't see all the other stuff. You're missing 99% of it.

That's why astronomers now have the gamma-ray telescope (the Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope), X-ray telescopes (a bunch of them), ultraviolet telescopes, etc., in space, so they can observe the universe in its full splendor.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Perhaps we will invent something that can travel faster than light. But even at the speed of light, it is four years travel time to the star closest to the Sun. Twice the speed of light, two years. Four times the speed of light, one year.

Practically speaking, why wait? The idea is that deep space may have rules that we don’t know about. If future tech does not pan out, we have still much to learn with slow and methodical.