Voyager reaches the frontiers of the solar system
27 May 2005
by Richard
Conan-Davies
|
The Voyager 1
spacecraft has reached the edge of our solar system
after some 26 years of travel through the solar
system. Dr. Edward Stone who currently leads the project at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories explained that "Voyager 1 has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space," One of the weird things about where voyager is that it crossed something called the termination shock of the outer edge of the solar system. This is the spot where there is sudden change in speed of the the solar wind, it slows down rapidly and gets blown back by interstellar gas of the milky way galaxy. There was a bit of controversy in 2004 but the evidence suggested that it had reached this spot because the space probe measured of a sudden increase in the strength of the magnetic field carried by the solar wind, combined with an assumed decrease in its speed. This happens whenever the solar wind slows down. Voyager is typically tracked by the Deep Space Network which includes the Tidbinbilla Tracking Station in Canberra, Australia. It is the furthest man made object ever and it includes some memorbillia from Eart in the form of a gold record LP. |
 An artisit impression of the locations of the voyager space probes. image: NASA/JPL |
Related Links
Original press release from NASA/JPL
Nature
& Science News
ClearlyExplained.com