Bon Voyage Voyager 1!

dreadgeek · 06-20-2011, 11:40 AM

Okay, strictly speaking Voyager 1 left the Earth 34 years ago, however the spacecraft is about to make another milestone--it is about to become the first object crafted by humans to leave the Sun's influence.

The solar system does not just encompass the planets, it is actually the entirety of the Sun's influence both gravitational and (in a limited sense) electromagnetic*. Voyager 1, at ~11 billion miles from the Sun is already out further than any other object made by humans. It is past the outermost planets, it is out beyond the Kuiper belt and is close to what is known as the heliopause which is where the 'boundary' of interstellar space is considered to be. When it crosses that boundary, it will no longer be in the solar system and will truly be out in interstellar space.

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...-new-data-says

Cheers
Aj

06-20-2011, 11:40 AM	#1
dreadgeek Power Femme How Do You Identify?: Cinnamon spiced, caramel colored, power-femme Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: Married to a wonderful horse girl Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Lat: 45.60 Lon: -122.60 Posts: 1,733 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,132 Thanked 6,848 Times in 1,493 Posts Rep Power: 21474851	Bon Voyage Voyager 1! Okay, strictly speaking Voyager 1 left the Earth 34 years ago, however the spacecraft is about to make another milestone--it is about to become the first object crafted by humans to leave the Sun's influence. The solar system does not just encompass the planets, it is actually the entirety of the Sun's influence both gravitational and (in a limited sense) electromagnetic. Voyager 1, at ~11 billion miles from the Sun is already out further than any other object made by humans. It is past the outermost planets, it is out beyond the Kuiper belt and is close to what is known as the heliopause which is where the 'boundary' of interstellar space is considered to be. When it crosses that boundary, it will no longer be in the solar system and will truly be out in interstellar space. http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...-new-data-says Cheers Aj __________________ Proud member of the reality-based community.* "People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett)