Get Ready, Because Voyager I Is *This Close* to Leaving Our Solar System

The Atlantic ^ | June 13, 2012 | Rebecca J. Rosen

[C19fan]

ast week, in the corners of the Internet devoted to outer space, things started to get a little, well, hot. Voyager 1, the man-made object farthest away from Earth, was encountering a sharp uptick in the number of a certain kind of energetic particles around it. Had the spacecraft become the first human creation to "officially" leave the solar system?

It's hard to overstate how wild an accomplishment this would be: A machine, built here on Earth by the brain- and handiwork of humans, has sailed from Florida, out of Earth's orbit, beyond Mars, beyond the gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn, and may now have left the heliosphere -- tiny dot in the universe beholden to our sun. Had it really happened? How would we know?

[canuck_conservative]

The solar system is just an elaborate sound stage the CIA zapped with a shrink ray and stores in a mason jar at Area 51.

And Sheila Jackson Lee stills demands to see the flag that Neil Armstrong planted on Mars.

[njslim]

When will it reach NIBIRU...?

[Retired Greyhound]

They have been saying this about these space probes for years!

I would appreciate if you didn't say "space" and "probes" in the same sentence.

Brings back bad memories. Ouch.

[SES1066]

Twenty Five years to leave the sloar/solar system? What a slow-poke. Thought it was already gone years ago.

The definition of our Solar System has been getting changed in the 33 years of Voyager 1 & 2(1977). Obviously, at the time of their launch, most people and even many scientists would have put the boundary of the Solar System at the outermost planet, Pluto. Voyager 1 passed Pluto's orbit in May 1988 while Voyager 2 in August 1990. So you are correct in that milestone,

Now Pluto, even though it has been discovered to have a moon, has been demoted to a new category of 'dwarf planet' and now the furthest out is the similarly classified Eris. Recently discovered in 2005 at a current 3 times the distance of Pluto from the Sun or aphelion(max distance) of 97.5 AU (Astronomical Units, 1 AU is 93 million miles = Earth's orbit) to perihelion (min distance) of 37.7 AU (inside Pluto's aphelion.)

Voyager 1 is now at better than 120 AU while Voyager 2 is only[!] at 98 AU. So it is accurate only to say that Voyager 1 is well beyond the furthest discovered solid planet-like object (subject to change at any time!)

[mikrofon]

“Missed it by that much.”

[mikrofon]

Captain Decker was devastated, but eventually got together with that Whale Biologist & lived happily ever after....

[folkquest]

“This is space! ‘Course, we’re just in the beginning part of space, we-we haven’t even got to *outer* space yet!”
-Armageddon

[cripplecreek]

Voyager 1 is well beyond the furthest discovered solid planet-like object (subject to change at any time!)

Its still inside the closest orbit of Sedna.

[SES1066]

Its still inside the closest orbit of Sedna.

Au contraire mon ami. According to my info, Sedna (IAU 90377) is approaching its ±11,400 year perihelion of ±76.361 AU before swinging out to its eye-popping aphelion of ±937 AU. Whew, talk about eccentricity!

Since Voyager 1 is at 120+ AU, that puts it beyond that lowly vacation spot of Sedna.

I will say that we taxpayers have really gotten our money's worth out of these probes that are estimated to be able to keep reporting for another 10-13 years (47 years total!)

Happy 237th Birthday to the US Army and Happy Flag Day!

[cripplecreek]

Thank ya, fer the correction.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

If President Soetoro doesn’t kill us off, Voyager will be in the Smithsonian in less than a century.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

How long would it take to be “outside” the solar system if it traveled a path perpendicular to the orbital plane?

[MarkL]

“This is space! ‘Course, we’re just in the beginning part of space, we-we haven’t even got to *outer* space yet!” -Armageddon

You had to know this was coming... It was inevitable...

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen..."

Douglas Adams

[The Cajun]

Voyager will be in the Smithsonian in less than a century.

Yup, that's what I was thinking, along with the Mars rovers and moon buggy.

[Shadowstrike]

Voyager 1 PING.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Roccus, an ‘extra extra’ to the APoD list.

[kitchen]

Happy 237th Birthday to the US Army and Happy Flag Day!

And here comes the War of 1812 Bicentennial . Congress declared war on June 18, 1812. How time flies…

[SES1066]

And here comes the War of 1812 Bicentennial . Congress declared war on June 18, 1812. How time flies…

AND ... the anniversary of the LAST battle of the Napoleonic Wars - WATERLOO in 1815! If you play the alternative history mind game, would the War of 1812 between USA and GB have occurred without Napoleon? Would Britain have won if it hadn't been fighting Napoleon? As it was, 1812 can be called the Second War of Independence and the War of Canadian Separatism. Oh say can you see!

Thanks for the referral!