Voyager nears solar systems edge...

Cú Giobach

G-Money wrote: »

I'm a bit confused by the term interstellar. The article says it's going into interstellar space now, which is the space between stars. I'm a real newbie to all this but isn't it always between stars anyway assuming it doesn't crash into one?

Within the solar system it's called "Interplanetary Space" and outside that it's "Interstellar Space", and the space between the galaxies is "Intergalactic Space".
The terms for space travel are similar, we have sent quite a few probes on Interplanetary journeys, to Mars, Venus, Jupiter........etc, the Voyager and Pioneer probes as they leave interplanetary space will become interstellar travellers, and we can only dream of intergalactic travel.

Cork boy 55

Seen from 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a "pale blue dot" (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right).

D_murph

What were those bands anyway?

Cork boy 55

D_murph wrote: »

What were those bands anyway?

Here is the answer comrade space watcher , click on the link and read the text :cool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

dominiquecruz

..newbie alert! Can I ask a question? I know we lost contact with Pioneer 10 almost 9 years ago now, but do they have any theoretical ideas on whereabouts it might be? I mean, was this not the first man-made object to travel into interstellar space, albeit undocumented/recorded?

Cork boy 55

dominiquecruz wrote: »

..newbie alert! Can I ask a question? I know we lost contact with Pioneer 10 almost 9 years ago now, but do they have any theoretical ideas on whereabouts it might be? I mean, was this not the first man-made object to travel into interstellar space, albeit undocumented/recorded?

The last we heard was on January 23, 2003 when it was 12 billion-kilometers (80 AU) from Earth

They tried in 2006 when they thought they had a window but no response. They reakon its power is to low.

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000477/

Duiske

Looks like Voyager 1 may have made it to the edge of the solar system. Shooting along at just over 60,000 km/hr, and with roughly 13 years power left, data being sent back should start to get pretty interesting.

(Reuters) - The Voyager 1 space probe has reached the edge of the solar system, extending its record for being the most distant man-made object in space.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-space-voyager-probe-idUSBRE85E0VU20120615

Chuck Stone

What are the chances of another craft overtaking it before it gets to the next nearest star system?

shizz

Chuck Stone wrote: »

What are the chances of another craft overtaking it before it gets to the next nearest star system?

Well if we significantly advance propulsion and send one out that way then yeah? 73600 years before it reaches the nearest star.

Chuck Stone

I find it simply amazing that we can detect a faint signal from such a far away object. For me it's as if someone is whistling on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic (the Star Trek theme tune..?) and it's being picked up at the The Cliffs of Moher.

Cork boy 55

BBC wrote: »

They were then despatched towards deep space, in the general direction of the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy.


Their plutonium power sources will stop generating electricity in about 10-15 years, at which point their instruments and transmitters will die.
The Voyagers will then become "silent ambassadors" from Earth as they move through the Milky Way.


Voyager 1 is on course to approach a star called AC +793888, but it will only get to within two light-years of it.


Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1 and was put on a slower path to interstellar space. It is currently 14.7 billion km from Earth.


It is hurtling towards a star named Ross 248, but, again, even at its closest, it will still be a whole light-year away.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18458478

According to above
So both these Voyagers have been pointed at stars but will never get to them and will run out of juice first.

I don;t understand this BBC piece does it mean voyager will slow down and stop before reaching the star.
Would it not keep going at its current speed forever unless something stops it in a vacuum.



So they are not Starships just interstellar medium probes.

Cork boy 55

How fast could we get a robot-probe to the nearest star with current Tech
and can we construct one with power to last that long

In otherwords Are we capable of sending out robot starships yet?

shizz

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18458478

According to above
So both these Voyagers have been pointed at stars but will never get to them and will run out of juice first.

I don;t understand this BBC piece does it mean voyager will slow down and stop before reaching the star.
Would it not keep going at its current speed forever unless something stops it in a vacuum.



So they are not Starships just interstellar medium probes.

It means it wasn't sent out at the same speed as voyager 1. So it is travelling at a slower velocity.

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

How fast could we get a robot-probe to the nearest star with current Tech
and can we construct one with power to last that long

In otherwords Are we capable of sending out robot starships yet?

I'm not sure. Maybe slightly faster than one of the voyager probes. The problem is the further you need to go, the more propellant you need, the more propellant you need the bigger your ship, the bigger your ship the more propellant you need. It's a big spiral.

Our biggest hope would be nuclear thermal rockets which wouldn't be too far off existence. Just lacks funding, some technological feats and what not to see them into fruition. But even they wouldn't see us make a huge dent in the amount of time these things would take to get there. Were talking hundreds of thousands of years.

eh2010

dominiquecruz wrote: »

..newbie alert! Can I ask a question? I know we lost contact with Pioneer 10 almost 9 years ago now, but do they have any theoretical ideas on whereabouts it might be? I mean, was this not the first man-made object to travel into interstellar space, albeit undocumented/recorded?[/QUOTE

Voyager over took it in 1998 so its far behind voyager.

GhostInTheRuins

shizz wrote: »

The problem is the further you need to go, the more propellant you need, the more propellant you need the bigger your ship, the bigger your ship the more propellant you need. It's a big spiral

(I have no idea what I'm talking about really) I always thought that there was no friction in space, so when you accelerate up to speed you can just fly along forever without anymore acceleration because nothing will slow you down. No?

shizz

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

(I have no idea what I'm talking about really) I always thought that there was no friction in space, so when you accelerate up to speed you can just fly along forever without anymore acceleration because nothing will slow you down. No?

Well nothing will slow you down unless your course gets changed by something's gravity which you will then have to account for. Or you can use it to sling shot, but that wouldn't be necessary in interstellar space.

But within the solar system, space craft don't travel in straight lines, they move around be changing orbits. To travel in a straight line would result in the need for large propulsion which will require more propellant etc.
So to exit the solar system you need a big orbit which would be a heavy burn.

And next in order to accelerate up to the required velocity to make it quickly to another star, you basically need to continuously accelerate and then decelerate when you are nearing the location. To continuously accelerate you need to constantly be burning propellant, which obviously isn't going to happen with chemical rockets but can be done with nuclear thermal and electric propulsion.

But again to get to those distances you will need a lot of power to power these propulsion systems.

Just remember that space is BIG. So so so so big.

norrie rugger

Also space is not empty. There are things like dust, small particles, atoms, solar wind and gravity that would all eventually pull an object off course or stop it

af_thefragile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeXkZZ55dKM

Squeaky the Squirrel

Voyager has left the building......oh wait, no it hasn't.

Capt'n Midnight

XKCD delivers again

So far Voyager 1 has 'left the Solar System' by passing through the termination shock three times, the heliopause twice, and once each through the heliosheath, heliosphere, heliodrome, auroral discontinuity, Heaviside layer, trans-Neptunian panic zone, magnetogap, US Census Bureau Solar System statistical boundary, Kuiper gauntlet, Oort void, and crystal sphere holding the fixed stars.

Srianadh

SO have they given us an ETA for Voyager "Officially" out of the Solar System? Or even a rough indication. When can I uncork my bottle of champagne dammit?!?!?

Rented Mule

Srianadh wrote: »

SO have they given us an ETA for Voyager "Officially" out of the Solar System? Or even a rough indication. When can I uncork my bottle of champagne dammit?!?!?

Be careful where you uncork that bottle of champagne. Someone might proclaim that it left the solar system as well

Leader of the Furlings

This time!

Voyager 1 appears to have at long last left our solar system and entered interstellar space, says a University of Maryland-led team of researchers.

Carrying Earthly greetings on a gold plated phonograph record and still-operational scientific instruments – including the Low Energy Charged Particle detector designed, built and overseen, in part, by UMD's Space Physics Group – NASA's Voyager 1 has traveled farther from Earth than any other human-made object. And now, these researchers say, it has begun the first exploration of our galaxy beyond the Sun's influence.

"It's a somewhat controversial view, but we think Voyager has finally left the Solar System, and is truly beginning its travels through the Milky Way," says UMD research scientist Marc Swisdak, lead author of a new paper published online this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Swisdak and fellow plasma physicists James F. Drake, also of the University of Maryland, and Merav Opher of Boston University have constructed a model of the outer edge of the Solar System that fits recent observations, both expected and unexpected.

BAA RAM EWE

http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/turns-out-deep-space-makes-the-creepiest-sound

Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, NASA has determined that Voyager I left our solar system around Aug. 25, 2012, clocking a total travel distance of over 12 billion miles. Humans, by proxy, have officially begun interstellar travel — Starfleet here we come.
According to the American Geophysical Union, on Aug. 25, Voyager I broke through the heliosphere, a region of space that surrounds our solar system like a bubble of anomalous cosmic rays. Its instruments then became bombarded with galactic cosmic rays, or radiation coming from outside our solar system.
Then Voyager I’s plasma wave instrument began to detect something new.

newmug

^^^^^:eek:

That is freaky! X-files stuff!

OldRio

BAA RAM EWE wrote: »

http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/turns-out-deep-space-makes-the-creepiest-sound

Interesting stuff.
Thanks for that.

namloc1980

Srianadh wrote: »

SO have they given us an ETA for Voyager "Officially" out of the Solar System? Or even a rough indication. When can I uncork my bottle of champagne dammit?!?!?

In roughly 20,000 years. That champagne will be well and truly matured by then!

Capt'n Midnight

Here we go again

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

XKCD delivers again

So far Voyager 1 has 'left the Solar System' by passing through the termination shock three times, the heliopause twice, and once each through the heliosheath, heliosphere, heliodrome, auroral discontinuity, Heaviside layer, trans-Neptunian panic zone, magnetogap, US Census Bureau Solar System statistical boundary, Kuiper gauntlet, Oort void, and crystal sphere holding the fixed stars.

_Tombstone_

NASA's last original Voyager engineer is retiring