Voyager 1 May Be Caught Inside an Interstellar Flux Transfer Event 120
KentuckyFC writes "Last month, NASA declared that Earth's most distant probe had finally left the Solar System. But the announcement may now turn out to be premature. It was prompted by a dramatic increase in the density of plasma in the region of space the spacecraft is now in. However, there has been no change in the local magnetic field, which is what astrophysicists would expect if Voyager had entered interstellar space. Instead, space scientists think the probe may be caught inside a magnetic portal known as an interstellar flux transfer event. This occurs when the magnetic fields from two different objects briefly become connected through a tube-like magnetic structure. This process happens between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field about every eight minutes, so similar events are expected between the Sun's field and the interstellar field. This magnetic tube would allow particles in from outside the Solar System, increasing the density of plasma, while maintaining the same magnetic field. If so, Voyager 1 hasn't yet left the Solar System after all."
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/1189/ [xkcd.com]
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Not to be left out...
http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1900.html [joyoftech.com]
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Static image, most likely. You tend to know when it isn't because it's either obvious or on the news.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
Doc: Bye, Marty! Yaaa hoooo! It worked! It worked! I sent him out of the solar system!
Marty McVoyager in a different shirt runs up behind him: Doc! I'm back.
Doc: Guuuuuuuuuhhhhhh!!!!!
Marty: I'm back. I'm back from interstellar space!
Doc: Great Scott! It must be the interstellar flux transit event capacitor!
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If you know the exact distance where the solar system ends, please inform the people working on the Voyager program and save them the trouble. The fact that a human-made object is actively exploring the edges of our solar system and returning data to Earth is amazing.
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What if there's a planetoid of slightly larger mass than Pluto, about a third of the distance out again? Is that in interstellar space? Good job.
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What if, what if...
There's no damn planet out of Pluto's orbit! ...on his book, that is.
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If you know the exact distance where the solar system ends, please inform the people working on the Voyager program and save them the trouble...
This is all so arbitrary and semantic.
All we have to do is declare Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to no longer be planets, and then we can say that Voyager left the Solar System when it passed the orbit apogee of Mars.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Funny)
Voyager has simply entered the quantum superposition layer of our solar system, where it is inside the solar system, in interstellar space, maybe somewhere between, a dead cat, and a live mega-spaceship, all at the same time.
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http://xkcd.com/1189/ [xkcd.com]
*Sigh* Now he's got to update it again...
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Funny and quite accurate as well. I was just thinking "This means that we'll see yet another new regarding Voyager I leaving the solar system"!
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
We keep discovering NEW SHIT. There's new shit out there, and we keep finding it. We don't know what it means because we haven't left the fucking SOLAR SYSTEM before. It's kind of a big deal.
Science is pretty much built on being wrong, and looking at the data again, and fixing whatever was wrong. One team studies something and one signal is gone, so we left the solar system. But another team looks at different data and we haven't.
Imagine coming across from China, seeing Hawaii, and seeing an island. The new world! Oops, that was just an island, next one is new world. Oops, next one. Oops, next one. Wait, where did the land go? LAND! Oh crap, it's a bay. There's land! FINALLY!
It's like playing the old game "is this my ass or another roll of fat?" Or the relatively new game "is that a hot chick or Fabio?" or "is this movie going to be any good?" or "is this story a dupe?" or "where does the pee pee go for sexy time?"
You are going to lose plenty of times before winning. That's how we find completely new shit about the universe. Is that a human like species, or a chimpanzee that will rip my face off? I don't know it's fucking new! It might eat me and digest me and shit me out and throw my turd corpse at zoo visitors, because the other visitors laugh and I think it's what I should be doing. Someone has to die for science, I'd rather be behind someone, applauding and pushing them into certain death.
But when that guy dies, I'm going to write down how he died, so that the next poor fucker doesn't die exactly the same way. More information, more new shit that we didn't know before. Go for it, die for science, and let's all LEARN SHIT.
It sounds like they have a problem with their flux (Score:1)
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Now the real question is 88 mph in relation to what? :)
Re:It sounds like they have a problem with their f (Score:5, Funny)
0 mph
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Best /. comment I have seen this year. Well done!
Re:It sounds like they have a problem with their f (Score:4, Informative)
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flux!
That was the only bit of technobabble that Jon Pertwee would memorize, because is has meter. :)
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I got to give it to them, it's a nice title.
Well of course not. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh nos! (Score:3)
Does this mean we have to go through another 'Voyager has now left the solar system' again?
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Consolidate all such stories to make the hype more efficient: "Voyager has found dark water on Mars beyond the solar system".
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Does this mean we have to go through another 'Voyager has now left the solar system' again?
At least it's not on its way back in the middle of a giant energy cloud.
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That was Voyager 6.
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I'll be there to post!
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That can't work, you reversed nothing!
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That can't work, you reversed nothing!
Nor was it rerouted through the main deflector.
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Yeah, the summary really did sound like technobabble right out of Star Trek.
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You forgot to calibrate the Heisenberg compensators.
That only works on transporters.
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Let's Do The Time Warp to the 1960s: (Score:2)
Scotty: Captain! We're caught in an interstellar flux transfer event!"
Kirk: Is that worse than the heartbreak of psoriasis?
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An interstellar flux transfer event?? (Score:3)
* [wikipedia.org]
Easy fix... (Score:5, Funny)
Just reverse the polarity, and all should be well.
Shit always worked on Star Trek...
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Wait, did Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and tell you that?
NASA PR machine (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the NASA PR machine was turned off due to the Government shutdown.
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Forget PR. It's the data collection and analysis that really cost money. The Government is closed people-- that means shut off your computers and stop doing any work. I don't care if you miss a "once in a lifetime" scientific opportunity--it's against the law [wikipedia.org] to put your scientific interests ahead of partisan political squabbling.
Re:NASA PR machine (Score:4, Funny)
This is just part of a cron script that send a news "Voyager I just left the solar system" once a month to the media. No human intervention required.
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The paper's authors aren't federal government employees, and were working with data pulled down from Voyager previously.
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It's almost as though this research didn't come out of NASA.
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Essential services are still operating.
Voyager's Still Going (Score:2)
I thought that it was stopped for the government shutdown?
Serious question, are projects like Voyager, the Mars Rovers and all that still being actively monitored, or are they just being left to fend for themselves during the shutdown?
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I thought that it was stopped for the government shutdown?
Serious question, are projects like Voyager, the Mars Rovers and all that still being actively monitored, or are they just being left to fend for themselves during the shutdown?
NASA has Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali monitoring the Mars rovers. But Voyager is on it's own.
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I wish that extraneous apostrophe would leave the Solar System.
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Not gonna happen. It is ingrained in our culture.
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it's illegal for the buro's to accept voluntary work from them. that's why Smithsonian is closed.
seriously though, what the fuck is up with USA? you can't fucking keep even your museums open...
why the fuck don't these departments get their budget for the year? why the fuck do you even have two houses, if the point is to just fuck things up all the time?
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the founders (blessings and peace be upon them) designed our government to be dysfunctional, so that the governed will learn not to place their trust in politicians. We can't have an efficient government because that would corrupt our souls.
97% of NASA is furloughed. (Score:1)
I can't find any information on exactly who that is, but considering the importance of some projects I imagine those other 3% are there for a reason.
Are we there yet? (Score:2)
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"I hope that Voyager finished to leave the solar system by the time it reaches Andromeda."
I think that Andromeda will reach voyager first (Its due to collide with the milky way in a billion years or so)
I blame the shutdown (Score:1)
See, they didn't vote the budget, and shutdown the government, and not the voyager 1 probe can't leave the solar system !
It's a conspiracy !!!
The martians! (Score:2)
Right now, there is a space alien laughing its ass off while it pulls voyager back into our solar system with a magnetic tractor beam.
HUR HUR HUR! EARTHLINGS FUNNY!!!!
It's aliens I tell you (Score:2)
They think reversing the connectors on Voyager's sensors is a big joke.
Earth-Sun magnetic connection (Score:3)
Honestly, I'm more fascinated by this. What effects does this have on the Earth's magnetic field?
I'd be disappointed if ... (Score:2)
... I still cared about the status of Voyager 1. Perhaps it still hasn't left the nest, probably all set up in the basement playing GTA V.
Personally, I am delighted at the name of this phenomenon, whoever made up that phrase was clearly watching too much science fiction that week, or more likely not enough. "Interstellar flux transfer event" ... can you not see that in a future SF script? "Captain, we are caught in an interstellar flux transfer event, if we don't break free we will [go back in time | be tra
can we launch a faster probe to catch up to it? (Score:2)
Can we launch a faster probe to catch up to and pass by Voyager? One with up to date instrumentation. Would that tell us anything?
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Short answer, yes we could but it will take a long time to catch up. Voyager has a 35 year head start.
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True. But is somehow it became important to do so, the technology we have today using ion engines and solar sails and such could make it possible to launch a costly vehicle that accelerated far longer. It could accelerate for years actually, and develop a much faster rate of acceleration. The original Voyager, and most subsequent deep space vehicles, are designed to be the most economical possible and get the job done. If the job was to catch up and pass it, and the budget were sufficient, that could be
Interstellar Flux Transfer Event (Score:2)
We witnessed a space-sponge spontaneously move more than six feet!
Kirk: (Score:1)
Khaaaaaaan!
Oh, wait.
Suuuure, it is. (Score:1)
"Flux Transfer Event"? Yeah right. Caused by a failing Flux Capacitor, no doubt.
CRON (Score:2)
Of Course... (Score:1)
We have it wrong.. (Score:2)
We're all going to find out there's some still-unexplained phenomenon where every object outside the solar system is actually much closer than it appears to us do to this flux event that distorts everything. We are told by the world's brightest scientists that everything is goddamn far away. Voyager 1 is going to go out and prove that all wrong. We used to think the Earth is flat.
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"We're all going to find out there's some still-unexplained phenomenon where every object outside the solar system is actually much closer than it appears to us"
And then, a bit later, we'll recieve a deep WOOOOONNNNNK! as Voyager hits the Celestial Sphere.
So the universe is a series of tubes? (Score:1)
Who knew? I mean besides Ted Stevens of course.
Incorrect Premise (Score:1)
Not "Caught" (Score:2)
Back on the magnetic highway (Score:1)
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So, it seems Voyager is still on the "magnetic highway" after all. I seem to recall during the discussion of the "magnetic highway" that some scientists were waiting for a change in the magnetic field [slashdot.org] before they claimed to have left the solar system. Somehow that got ignored when the plasma density data came out.
Wouldn't it be magnificent if beyond the gravitational and magnetic bounds of our solar system there existed galactic plasma winds driven on lines of magnetic fields. Perhaps interstellar travel is truly sailing within the confines of the galaxy. It would be wonderfully poetic if our first interstellar explorations were actually somewhat akin to our first intercontinental ones.
There is poetry in science and nature and oft times there is rhyme, as witness the beauty of a Fibonacci sequence in math or the won
Great Scott! (Score:1)
Geez... (Score:2)
Just realign the flux capacitor, adjust the Heisenberg compensators, reverse the polarity, and whatever you do NEVER cross the streams and Voyager should be just fine. Really, it's that simple.
Re:Magnetic tubes (Score:4, Funny)
Uhhh, ... I think we've all been insulted. But I'm honestly not sure how.
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I am endlessly entertained watching the Slashdot community discuss magnetic fields without any mention of the electrical currents which tend to be their cause down here on Earth.
Why would that be relevant? You can have strong magnetic fields in the presence of microscopic electric currents such as permanent magnets. And they're discussing this in the context of plasma, both from the Sun and from the interstellar environment. I understand there is some current in the Solar Wind, but one can easily explain magnetic fields on interstellar scales without requiring similar scale electrical fields or currents.
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The magnetic fields involved in such things do involve macroscopic currents
That's an assertion without evidence. For example, solar system magnetic fields aren't generated by the weak current sheets that happen to be present, but rather by the intense and energetic processes happening in the star at the center.
how the magnetic fields are carried by plasma
Via microscopic currents in the plasma which pin the magnetic fields.
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Such plasma is solidly in the MHD regime, where magnetic fields are all from macroscopic current densities, not microscopic currents.
Hmmm, glancing at the equations, I don't see that assertion. The local current density is proportional to the curl of the magnetic field. If the magnetic field doesn't change much spatially or just happens to have a low curl for other reasons at a given scale, then it doesn't have a strong current at that scale. So you can have a strong macroscopic magnetic field without a strong macroscopic current in an MHD regime.
An example would be a static MHD regime plasma with a strong external magnetic field goi