Twin Voyager Probes 25 Years In Flight 16
pbranes writes: "CNN has an article discussing the 25th anniversary of both of the Voyager spacecraft and what the next few years hold for the spacecraft. Scientists believe that they can maintain contact with the spacecraft for at least 20 more years, and they hope that the spacecraft passes the heliopause, the boundary for interstellar space, during this time." We've mentioned the long-term prospects of these probes before; it's not long until they may meet Termination Shock.
hope? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hope? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some researchers have suggested that the heliopause might not be a well defined boundary and we might not notice passing through it for a while.
By the way, it is a very tough problem developing a detailed 3D model of the heliosphere when pretty much all your measurements are either inferred or taken mostly at 1 AU in the ecliptic plane (where Ulysses, the Pioneers, and the Voyagers are the exceptions). Even with the measurements the models are still very complicated and take quite a long time to run.