Voyager Has Left The Building...

[SteyrAUG]

...or at least has reached interstellar space.

After 36 years, Voyager 1 goes interstellar

The tireless Voyager I spacecraft, launched in the disco era and now more than 11 billion miles from Earth, has become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space, scientists said Thursday. Interstellar space, scientists now know with certainty, is dense with particles, and the place is literally hissing. Or maybe you could say it’s whistling in the dark.

Scientists have long thought that there would be a boundary out there, somewhere, where the million-mile-per-hour “solar wind” of particles would give way abruptly to cooler, denser interstellar space, permeated by charged particles from around the galaxy.

That boundary, called the heliopause, turns out to be 11.3 billion miles from the sun, according to Voyager’s instruments and Gurnett’s calculations.

[yellowfin]

It would be really interesting to be able to travel back and forth that far. What would life be like drifting through space, if we were able to sustain ourselves that permanently?

[jpmuscle]

It would be really interesting to be able to travel back and forth that far. What would life be like drifting through space, if we were able to sustain ourselves that permanently?

I imagine that it would be boring has hell... to spend a life time moving in one direction where the view of the stars in front of you never, EVER, changes... it would downright maddening. Pandorum anyone? lol

[Hmac]

Stephen Hawking and I are really uncomfortable with this. We humans should keep a low profile in the galaxy, at least until we perfect particle weapons or some other means of defense. American Indians didn't fare well from their "visit from aliens" for example.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ade-Earth.html

[SteyrAUG]

I imagine that it would be boring has hell... to spend a life time moving in one direction where the view of the stars in front of you never, EVER, changes... it would downright maddening. Pandorum anyone? lol

The most ironic part of all is by the time it reaches the next solar system we will probably have developed more advanced explorers that will beat it there.

That said, I still remember when it was launched in 1977 and watching the PBS series "Cosmos" a few years later, it really was a fascinating time to be a kid. I think only the kids who saw the moon landing in 1969 have us beat.

[SteyrAUG]

Stephen Hawking and I are really uncomfortable with this. We humans should keep a low profile in the galaxy, at least until we perfect particle weapons or some other means of defense. American Indians didn't fare well from their "visit from aliens" for example.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ade-Earth.html

I doubt we'd be worth the effort to visit. But the point is well made, even if ET somehow managed to value our lives, something as simple as an alien microbe could wipe us all out.

[wild_wild_wes]

How can they say it has left the solar system? It is nowhere near the Oort Cloud, which is definitely part of our system. Maybe in a thousand years...

[SteyrAUG]

How can they say it has left the solar system? It is nowhere near the Oort Cloud, which is definitely part of our system. Maybe in a thousand years...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopa...%29#Heliopause

The heliopause is the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium; where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the stellar winds of the surrounding stars. The crossing of the heliopause should be signaled by a sharp drop in the temperature of charged particles,[24] a change in the direction of the magnetic field, and an increase in the amount of galactic cosmic rays.[11]

In May 2012, Voyager 1 detected a rapid increase in such cosmic rays (a 9% increase in a month, following a more gradual increase of 25% from Jan. 2009 to Jan. 2012), suggesting it was approaching the heliopause.[11] In the fall of 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had crossed the heliopause as of August 25, 2012.[12]

Edited OP for clarity.

[Hmac]

I doubt we'd be worth the effort to visit. But the point is well made, even if ET somehow managed to value our lives, something as simple as an alien microbe could wipe us all out.

Hawking postulates that, so far, we just haven't been noticed.

As to Voyager being a tip-off, it will be 40,000 years before that vehicle gets to another system. Humans will either be living on multiple worlds already, or we will be long extinct. I also understand that radio-wave broadcasts will get there long in advance of Voyager. Our hand may already be tipped.

I think many of Hawking's observations may be more about SETI programs than our crude interstellar vehicles.

[Sensei]

Stephen Hawking and I are really uncomfortable with this. We humans should keep a low profile in the galaxy, at least until we perfect particle weapons or some other means of defense. American Indians didn't fare well from their "visit from aliens" for example.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ade-Earth.html

Let me get this straight, the smartest man in the cosmos thinks that advanced aliens are going to travel a few hundred billion miles to steal our natural resources because they cannot develop their own source of renewable energy?

I hate to laugh at a cripple, but kids do say the darnedest things...