Rules, people...
Posted on 12/10/2018 10:27:35 AM PST by ETL
Voyager 2 has entered interstellar space. The spacecraft slipped out of the huge bubble of particles that encircles the solar system on November 5, becoming the second ever human-made craft to cross the heliosphere, or the boundary between the sun and the stars.
Coming in second place is no mean achievement. Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to exit the solar system in 2012. But that craft’s plasma instrument stopped working in 1980, leaving scientists without a direct view of the solar wind, hot charged particles constantly streaming from the sun (SN Online: 9/12/13). Voyager 2’s plasma sensors are still working, providing unprecedented views of the space between stars.
“We’ve been waiting with bated breath for the last couple of months for us to be able to see this,” NASA solar physicist Nicola Fox said at a Dec. 10 news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington, D.C.
NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft in 1977 on a grand tour of the solar system’s planets (SN: 8/19/17, p. 26). After that initial tour was over, both spacecraft continued travelling through the bubble of plasma that originates at the sun.
“When Voyager was launched, we didn’t know how large the bubble was, how long it would take to get [to its edge] and whether the spacecraft could last long enough to get there,” said Voyager project scientist Edward Stone of Caltech.
For most of Voyager 2’s journey, the spacecraft’s Plasma Science Experiment measured the speed, density, temperature, pressure and other properties of the solar wind. But on November 5, the experiment saw a sharp drop in the speed and the number of solar wind particles that hit the detector each second. At the same time, another detector started picking up more high-energy particles called cosmic rays that originate elsewhere in the galaxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
I thought he changed his name to Neil DeGrabasse Tyson....
Been going miles and mikes since 1977, and hasn’t hit anything.
My dear, beloved MIL can’t go two weeks before a fender bender,
Me like um bald chicks like VeeGer!
Thanks colorado tanker. Instead of Johnny B Goode, it might have been more apropos to include "Great Balls of Fire" -- but of course, that would have been racist. /s
Once TNG took over the movies, I stopped watching them - until the new series of movies came out.
All of them were free on Amazon for a while and I tried to watch, but it just felt like a TV show and all the characters just looked like actors pretending on cardboard sets. i.e. I could not suspend disbelief while watching it.
Nailed ThatAss Tyson?
LOL, you win the Internet today!
I hope it doesn’t run into any exploring craft from an advanced civilization.
The result could be one of the worst movies ever.
Yep!
Of course that was before NASA dumped it's science goals and began striving to "stop" global warming and promote moslem diversity...
That was the 0bpmb's charter for it along with an outreach to the Muzz..
Don’t we all :)
I don’t get why there would be a sudden increase in the number of cosmic rays. They’re moving near the speed of light, the very weak solar winds ain’t going to do squat to them.
Rules, people...
In the movie it is stated that V’Ger, Vyager 6, fell into a black hole ending up at the AI/Thinking Machine planet.
It is the sun's magnetic field which deflects galactic cosmic rays. The solar wind itself is a form of cosmic rays. Apparently the field is becoming weak at the remote location where the craft is now.
Technical difficulties on Voyager One caused a delay.
Which is my point - assuming Voyager 6 was traveling at the same rate as Voyager 1/2, there would need to be a black hole within five light-days of earth...unless of course the black hole was used to somehow send the upgraded voyager back in time to 2271.
Persis was better looking in Megaforce.
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