It's Official: Voyager 1 Is an Interstellar Probe 218
astroengine writes "After a 35-year, 11-billion mile journey, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft left the solar system to become the first human-made object to reach interstellar space, new evidence from a team of scientists shows. 'It's kind of like landing on the moon. It's a milestone in history. Like all science, it's exploration. It's new knowledge,' long-time Voyager scientist Donald Gurnett, with the University of Iowa, told Discovery News. The first signs that the spacecraft had left the solar system's heliopause was a sudden drop in solar particles and a corresponding increase in cosmic rays in 2012, but this evidence alone wasn't conclusive. Through indirect means, scientist analyzing oscillations along the probe's 10-meter (33-foot) antennas were able to deduce that Voyager was traveling through a less dense medium — i.e. interstellar space." You can watch NASA's briefing on the probe's progress here.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
The Voyager program has helped us define what the "solar system" actually is.
Re:voyager has left the solar system. (Score:2, Insightful)
in fairness
Well, in fairness, there are good estimations, and there are bad estimations.
And then there's Vista.
Re:LOL ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw the Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
XKCD is great but I'm with you on this...Voyager's data *literally* defined the solar system for us (i'm sure Randall Munroe is up on this and appropriately stoked)
IMHO there is a greater point here about space exploration.
What *is* space exploration? When something like the humble Voyager 1 probe can continue giving usable data for such a long time, it should cause us to ask, why haven't our other missions been as successful?
The Mars rovers are another example. [xkcd.com] When you consider the scale and complexity of their task, the rovers comparatively performed on par with Voyager 1.
You might say, "We can't plan for what it does after the mission is over, that's kind of the point of having a defined *mission plan*" and to that I say 'hogwash'
It is my firm belief that humans should be taking vacations on Luna *now* and soon stepping foot on Mars. We could do it.
Why aren't we?
I see the same answer in both questions I posed. The best way I can say it is 'operational space research'...
I'm not dogging the Hubble or satellites made to find WIMPS or w/e...I think that it is more a failure of VISION.
Everything we do in space should be based around the notion of iterative progression. Each mission serves a primary function but also has a *secondary* function which is to provide the basis for the **NEXT STEP OUT**
We've been chasing our tails for 20+ years with most of our NASA projects. Don't get me started on the Shuttle and ISS. I won't get into it b/c I get huge downmods every time...
No...my criticism is systemic.
NASA is a tool. Are we using it to its fullest?
Voyager 1's quiet incessant pinging tells me 'no'