Spacecraft reaches edge of solar system: CNN

[Ivan Seeking]

(CNN) -- The Voyager 1 spacecraft has arrived at the boundary of the solar system and is flying into a region of space that has never been explored before, NASA announced Wednesday.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/11/05/voyager.solar.boundary/index.html

 

[enigma]

I thought it had been going through space which hadn't been explored before for the last 10 years or so...

 

[StephenPrivitera]

Don't you think it's a little cold out there?
And one million miles a day? That's REALLY fast.
Is this thing sending back any images?

 

[Phobos]

Originally posted by StephenPrivitera
Is this thing sending back any images?

Images, no. Data, yes.
(I could provide a link but it isn't working at the moment...I'll try to post it later.)

 

[Phobos]

Voyager 1's journey marks a major scientific milestone: For the first time, a man-made object has traveled 8.4 billion miles (13.5 billion kilometers), about 90 times the distance between the Earth and sun.

90 AU is well past the orbit of the outermost planet (Pluto @ 39.5 AU)
but it is still potentially inside the Kuiper Belt (30 to 100 AU from the sun) and certainly well inside the suspected distance of the Oort Cloud (10's of thousands of AU). So, if you define the solar system to include the Oort Cloud, Voyager is still within the solar system. If you're only concerned about the 9 planets, then Voyager is long gone.

Either way, the Voyager program was a screaming success.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I saw somewhere that Voyager had crossed the heliopause. Could you discuss this claim?

 

[LURCH]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
I saw somewhere that Voyager had crossed the heliopause. Could you discuss this claim?

I had not heard that. I know V1 was picking up radio signals thought to be coming from the heliopause, but the exact location of the termination shock was still a mystery, last I heard. I also think that these radio waves, or more likely some related electromagnetic phenomenon may be responsible for the mysterious deceleration of the Voyager and Pioneer probes.