Spacecraft reaches edge of solar system [extended article]

CNN ^ | Wednesday, November 5, 2003 | Kate Tobin

[yonif]

"This is a very exciting time, said Voyager project scientist Edward Stone. "Voyager is beginning to explore the final frontier of the solar system."

Scientists analyzing data from Voyager 1 disagree as to whether the probe has yet crossed over the critical boundary that marks the transition from our solar system into interstellar space. But even dissenters agree that if it has not crossed that boundary, called terminal shock, it is very close.

[yonif]

Voyager 1 travels roughly one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) a day.

Voyager's greeting to the universe is a phonograph record.

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

Where no one has gone before bump.

[Redcloak]

Messages from Jimmy Carter and Kurt Waldheim... If that doesn't convince ET that there's no intelligent life here, then nothing will.

[libsrscum]

It was launched by the United States of America.

[opbuzz]

...Voyager's greeting to the universe is a phonograph record.

Many people on Earth wouldn't recognize a phonograph record.

[isom35]

great. aliens will judge us based on a peanut farmer and a nazi. good idea nas-holes.

[anglian]

The record includes samples of music; 'Space Truckin', by Deep Purple.

[dc-zoo]

Maybe that's what's caused the sun to be so pissed off lately with its eruptions, passing gas, and all.

[Wacka]

I think it is an early version of the CD. i think they stored pictures on it too. The early ones were large, like the laser disks for home viewing.
Actually, I vaguely remember something like a laser disk/ CD was used for the "super slo-mo" replays on the early 70s Monday Night Football games. I know it was not tape.

[Irishguy]

ok, all joking aside...but sometimes when i sit back and thing of the craft out there..i just have to say ...wow..and i do mean wow...jsut take a minute to think of where it is...you gotta be impressed....

anyone know how it powers itself...is it just travelling from speed it picked up (gravitational sling shots etc) OR has it a propulsion system (i imagine unlikely) and any chance hummer could put one in the H2??? not that i have a hummer....

[presidio9]

Contrary to popular misconception, the Voyager 1 did not carry a plaque with print of da Vinci's "Virtruvian Man." Sagan wanted to include it, but this was the height of the feminist movement and they decided that it was not sexually inclusive.

Scientists devised a lame facimile which included both sexes for the later Pioneer missions.

I realize that these probes will of course never actually run into any intelligent life (the odds are better that every single person reading this will win the Powerball Lottery - Twice), but that's not the point. The plaque was a propaganda tool. It was included to spur public interest and imagination. Such missions are best left to artists, not scientists.

Leonardo was both.