Related News
NASA: Voyager 1 now in interstellar space
Print Edition
Voyager 1 has crossed a new frontier, becoming the first spacecraft ever to leave the solar system, NASA said.
Thirty-six years after it was launched from Earth on a tour of the outer planets, the plutonium-powered probe is more than 18.5 billion kilometers from the sun, cruising through interstellar space — the vast, cold emptiness between the stars, the United States space agency said on Thursday.
Voyager 1 actually made its exit more than a year ago, according to NASA. But it’s not as if there’s a dotted boundary line or a signpost out there, and it was not until recently that scientists had enough evidence to say that the probe had finally plowed through the hot plasma bubble surrounding the planets and escaped the sun’s influence. While some scientists remain unconvinced, NASA celebrated with a news conference featuring the “Star Trek” theme.
“We got there,” said mission chief scientist Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology, adding that the spacecraft was “setting sail in the cosmic seas between the stars.”
While Voyager 1 may have left the solar system as most people understand it, it still has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to go before bidding adieu to the last icy bodies that make up our neighborhood.
Voyager 1 will now study exotic particles and other phenomena in an unexplored part of the universe littered with ancient star explosions and radio the data back to Earth, where the Voyager team awaits the starship’s discoveries.
Voyager 1’s odyssey began in 1977 when the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched on a tour of the gas giant planets of the solar system. After beaming back dazzling postcard views of Jupiter’s giant red spot and Saturn’s shimmering rings, Voyager 2 hopscotched to Uranus and Neptune. Meanwhile, Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to power itself past Pluto.
Last year, scientists monitoring Voyager 1 noticed strange happenings that suggested the spacecraft had broken through, including charged particles streaming from the sun that suddenly vanished.
Since there was no detectable change in the direction of the magnetic field lines, the team assumed the far-flung craft was still in the heliosphere, or the vast bubble of charged particles around the sun.
The Voyager team waited for a change in magnetic field direction — thought to be the telltale sign of a cosmic border crossing. But in the meantime, a chance solar eruption caused the space around Voyager 1 to echo like a bell last spring and provided the scientists with the data they needed, convincing them the boundary had been crossed in August last year.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
