Ladies and Gentlemen! Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System!

BadBrain

Per NASA's press release ( http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/vo...r20120614.html ) of 14 June 2012, interstellar cosmic rays are striking the spacecraft at an increased rate. Voyager 1 has already encountered solar wind moving laterally with respect to the solar surface, and even in net retrograde motion with respect to the solar surface, which would mean that she's passed through the limit of solar influence capable of deflecting the interstellar medium, and has observed the interstellar medium deflecting solar influence. If the density of charged particles in the vicinity of the spacecraft has INCREASED, then this can only mean that she is currently in the "bow shock", which is where interstellar winds would tend to pile up in front of the solar system as it flies through interstellar space. (Think of a ship passing through the water: water is incompressible, so the energy of the ship passing through the water can only be expressed as a shift in the volume of the water immediately adjacent to the ship's bow (the "bow wave"). In a similar fashion, interstellar winds would tend to pile up in front of the solar system as an expression of aerodynamic pressure/aerodynamic drag.) If she's within the "bow shock", then she's within the interstellar medium, and no longer within the solar system.

Just think of that! An object crafted by human hands is now flying in interstellar space, outside the solar system! Elvis has truly left the building!

Three cheers for Voyager 1:

Hip! Hip! HOORAY!
Hip! Hip! HOORAY!
Hip! Hip! HOORAY!

DaveC426913

That's way cool.

SHISHKABOB

Awesome!

OmCheeto

Wow. That sucker was launched the year I graduated from high school. What the hell has kept it going?

google google google

13 more years!

That is freaking awesome. I'll be 66 years old, and probably ready for the permanap myself.

Ivan92

Oh my damn...that is incredible!

DaveC426913

In space, it just coasts, so...

Antiphon

The most shocking thing is that we can pick up a 24 Watt transmitter from this distance. I still can't beleive it.

Pengwuino

Well they better hurry up and get it back soon...

Anna Blanksch

That. Is. AWESOME! Hip Hip Hooray!

rethipher

I'm glad at least some of our race views this as important. This is the epitome of what our curiosity is capable of!

Storm89

It is quite a feat, but I can't help but think what we could achieve today. Although it's a bit of a vast distance to catch up to....

Pkruse

I remember that launch. The roads were packed with thousands of protesters objecting to the nuclear payload. That craft has a nuclear reactor onboard for power. Too far away from the sun to use solar power.

Ryan_m_b

It's not a nuclear reactor, its a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The difference as I understand it is that the first involves induced chain reactions of nuclear fission and the latter is harvesting energy from the heat produced by continuous radiation.

Astronomyboy

Wow :)

Whovian

I know I'm a bit late, but awesome!

lisaray

O Wow it was great...didn't even knew about this.

Pkruse

I know that a RTG is not a nuclear reactor, but it is commonly called that in the press, and we who worked with them would also sometimes call it that, even though we knew better.

I worked in the lifting, handling, and installation into the spavecraft, so I was not one of the guys who got to see them on the inside.

The radioactive material is only a passive heat source. It warms a bunch of thermocouples, which generate a voltage and current.