There are no signs to announce the edge of the solar system, but when the venerable Voyager 2 spacecraft approached this final frontier last Aug. 31 it was in for quite a shock. So were the scientists who analyzed the data that the craft radioed back to Earth, along with related observations by NASA’s twin Earth-orbiting STEREO spacecraft.
The signals reveal that at a distance of 83.7 astronomical units (1 AU is the average Earth-sun separation), Voyager 2 had at least five encounters with a turbulent region known as the termination shock. That’s the place where the solar wind — the sun’s hot supersonic wind of protons and other charged particles, which carves the heliosphere, a bubble in space extending well beyond the orbit of Pluto — slams into cold interstellar space and abruptly slows…
Researchers had expected that Voyager 2 would have only one encounter with the shock. The multiple crossings indicate that “the shock is not the steady structure that is predicted by the simplest theory,” says Len Burlaga of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It is like a wave approaching a beach, that grows, breaks, dissipates, and then re-forms closer to shore…”“Over the past few years, the stream of in situ and remote data from the outer reaches of the heliosphere has revolutionized our view of how the sun interacts with the galaxy,” comments J.R. Jokipii. More is to come, he adds, as the two Voyager craft continue their journeys past the termination shock, to the very edge of the solar system during the coming decade.
It’s a positive comment on the class of construction in these early Voyagers that they’re still chugging along, sending messages back home.
Cripes, we have cellphones with more computing power than these critters, nowadays. But, they’re still providing valuable information about the world around us. And beyond.
Can it see the Obama campaign signs from there?
#2–bruce==I think you have it. “We used to explore space, that was back when we had 8 billion people, gas for our cars, and fish in the sea.”
I’m glad there’s still something called scientist floating among the sea of corporate researchers.
#1…”Can it see the Obama campaign signs from there?”
Nope, but I’ll be it can smell Obama’s bullshit.
Ironic? That a delapidated, retired, unmanned space probe designed in the 1960’s is continuing to produce more new knowledge than the sum of all manned space exploration?
Statistical data from two points is not that meaningful for a finite determination. It will give us a great idea of what is out there, but not map boundaries.
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#6, flyingfuckup,
Your pretty, pink, frilly slip is showing.
#6 – as opposed to the leakage from McCain’s diaper?
Growing up seeing the Voyager program photos I have a warm spot for them. The Grand Tour was really something. It is hard to get jazzed up about white powder.
Interesting. I makes me wonder if this is some kind of interaction between physical matter at the limits of the solar system against the mysterious Dark Matter that has been hypothesized to fill the void of deep space in the Universe.
Weird.
I expect it will bump into a big, black, bigass wall and a voice will announce that Humanity is just a big Reality TV Show for a bunch of aliens who can’t think of anything better to do.
However, on a more serious side, I think this is amazing, and how proud must those people be who worked on the probes to know that something they put together is not only an ‘uje bunch of distance away, but it’s still working and still talking! I wish my iPhone had that kind of signal stamina!
The ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image can still bring a tear to my eye.
#9, “as opposed to the leakage from McCain’s diaper?”
I guess that just depends.
#7, “produce more new knowledge than the sum of all manned space exploration?”
We’re still gathering valuable data from the moon rocks astronauts collected in the ’60s.
God is saying, hey watch out you’ll bust the glass in that snow scape toy I bought for junior.
It’s somewhat heartening to know that there’s something else that scientists can explain or account for. Like not knowing what Dark Matter is, or if it really exists. Yet it’s supposedly 80% of the universe. That’s a pretty huge “we don’t know” factor! And yet we’re suppose to take their “Big Bang” theory as fact. It’s based on 3% background heat noise. Well if the universe is billions of years old, wouldn’t stars have had plenty of time to bleed off at least 3% of their heat into space? Why would this noise only be a result of the Big Bang? Because that’s what they want it to be. It’s the scientists’ “belief” system. And I’ve heard the phrase “we believe” sneak into many of their explanations. So scientists aren’t the pure reasoners they pretend to be, or like to think they are.
#15 What’s your point?
Although a study of that thing called philosophy has made the default empiricism of the washed masses unreasonable, I don’t think belief on the part of “scientists” belies some hidden fault.
Who are these tyrants pulling the wool over the eyes of the populus? Are they complicit in this deceit? Are they just doing their job?
Anyone willing to accept something as fact rather than canon is no scientist.
I am not a scientist and nor are you.
I was able to use my awesome powers of reasoning to discover that.