Voyager 1 Sends Messages from the Edge 287
dalmozian writes "NASA's Latest News about the Voyager 1 is being run on Sci-Tech. The Voyager has passed into the border region at the edge of the solar system and now is sending back information about this never-before-explored area, say scientists at the University of Maryland. From the article: 'Voyager 1 and its twin spacecraft Voyager 2 are now part of a NASA Interstellar Mission to explore the outermost edge of the sun's domain and beyond. Both Voyagers are capable of returning scientific data from a full range of instruments, with adequate electrical power and attitude control propellant to keep operating until 2020.'" The proof of crossing the termination shock was covered earlier this year but now we can see the actual data.
Re:Top 10 List (Score:5, Informative)
Voyager's message to the extraterrestrials (Score:5, Informative)
To find out more about the message - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Recor
Re:Why are they cancelling funding...? (Score:5, Informative)
Whilst there's lots about the TS that is suprising and exciting and that we don't understand, it is not quite as mysterious as barawn makes out.
As for Voyager 2 - it has a fully working plasma instrument that will give direct measurements of the plasma temperature, density, pressure, flow speed and so on, something we didn't have for V1. Is was the lack of proper plasma measurements that led to some teams claming V1 had crossed the TS and then recanting these claims.
Re:Top 10 List (Score:3, Informative)
There may still be argument over this as the wheel was invented about 3000 B.C. However, Egypt was supposedly quite late in getting wheel technology.
Re:Go Vger...go!!! (Score:3, Informative)
According to wikipedia, it was launched in the 1980s or 1990s [wikipedia.org]; I've a funny feeling the film must have said the "late 20th century", though I can't remember for sure, but we're certainly behind schedule. By the time we've launched Voyager 6 and got it back, Persis Baldgirl isn't going to worth getting taken over.
Seriously, a pretty good film; less "Star Trekky" than the others IMHO, which might be why some hardcore fans dislike it (I'm not that big a fan of the original series, personally).
Re:Top 10 List (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why are they cancelling funding...? (Score:3, Informative)
Kuiper belt (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Forgive my ignorance... (Score:3, Informative)
Do a little reading [wikipedia.org] on Pluto, and you should understand. There's a huge debate about the whole "is it a planet, is it not a planet, it's just too small, but then what is a continent", etc.
Re:i 0\/\/n0rZ t3h \/()j463r! woooot! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Voyager's binary transmission leaked! (Score:3, Informative)
is what it translates to.
Re:Top 10 List (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, they've solved that one. There were a lot of lemon-slice shaped bits lying around the sites that nobody had understood the purpose of, until an archaeologist noted that if you bind them to the sides of the block, they turn the whole thing into a sort of wheel shape. Draw a circle, then a square inside it with the corners touching the rim. Those four round sections you find lying outside the square are the shapes they found by the dozens. Wrap cables around the square bit in the middle and roll it up. Still a big job, but a lot less impossible that way.
Re:Top 10 List (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, some astronomers have suggested that. The problem is, as explained in an adjacent article, the term "planet" has never actually had a proper astronomical definition. There's an IAU panel working now to settle the terminological debate. The current proposal is that "planet" by itself be delisted as an astronomical term. They suggest that a modifier be required before "planet".
Part of the debate is that there's a significant crowd that objects to classification terms that depend on things that are not properties of the object. Or, at least, we should make a strict distinction between terms that describe an object, and terms that describe its relationship to other objects.
This would mean, for example, that the question of whether Luna and Titan are planets or moons would be answered "Yes." They are planets that are orbiting another planet as moons. But others insists that they won't allow something to be both a planet and a moon.
The Earth-Luna pair is an interesting case, because it's somewhat borderline. The common center of gravity is inside the Earth, but close to the surface. Another interesting bit of trivia is that the Lunar path around the Sun is everywhere convex (relative to the Sun) This means that it's more accurate to describe Earth-Luna as a pair that share an orbit around their common primary, rather than one orbiting the other.
But it's all rather silly, because there's no agreed-on definition of "planet". The term just refers to a historical list that is looking less and less relevant with time.
Anyway, stay tuned. Maybe the IAU will settle the matter, at least for those of us who consider their opinion important. Most likely, they'll just discard the term. If they do define it as an isolated term, the result will be a rewriting of the list of planets in the Solar System, as the current list is starting to look somewhat inappropriate.
It's too bad that the universe isn't cooperative enough to fit into a classification scheme that someone invented a few centuries back.
Re:This can't be right (Score:3, Informative)
No, he means what he says. The interstellar medium is a very sparse gas indeed, but it is a gas, and there is such a thing as a speed of sound in it. Sure, it's not significant in most circumstances, but the Sun makes a hell of a lot of noise :-)