{"id":33648,"date":"2013-09-16T15:36:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T14:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=33648"},"modified":"2015-05-06T08:59:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T07:59:04","slug":"voyager-probe-reaches-interstellar-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/09\/voyager-probe-reaches-interstellar-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Voyager Probe Reaches Interstellar Space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
NASA spacecraft becomes first human-made object to travel beyond the solar system, US scientists say.<\/i><\/p>\n

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The US space probe Voyager 1 has crossed a new frontier, becoming humanity’s first spacecraft ever to leave the solar system, NASA has said.Thirty-six years after it was launched from Earth on a tour of the outer\u00a0planets, the plutonium-powered spacecraft is more than 11 billion miles\u00a0from the Sun in interstellar space – the vast, cold emptiness between the stars, the US space agency said on Thursday [12 Sep 2013].<\/p>\n

Voyager 1 actually made its exit more than a year ago, according to NASA, but the evidence has only just come to light. “It’s a milestone and the beginning of a new journey,” said mission\u00a0chief scientist Ed Stone at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Voyager 1 will now study exotic particles and other phenomena in a\u00a0never-before-explored part of the universe and radio the data back to Earth,\u00a0where the Voyager team awaits the starship’s discoveries.<\/p>\n

The interstellar ambassador also carries a gold-plated disc containing\u00a0multicultural greetings, songs and photos, just in case it reaches an\u00a0intelligent species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Doctor Ed Stone on Voyager Mission<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Voyager 1’s odyssey began in 1977 when the spacecraft and its twin,\u00a0Voyager 2, were launched on a tour of the gas giant planets of the solar\u00a0system. After beaming back photographs of Jupiter’s giant red\u00a0spot and Saturn’s shimmering rings, Voyager 2 moved on to Uranus and Neptune.<\/p>\n

Last year, scientists monitoring Voyager 1 noticed charged particles streaming from\u00a0the sun suddenly vanished from its readings. At the same time, there was a spike in galactic\u00a0cosmic rays – suggesting it was beyond the heliosphere.<\/p>\n

A chance solar eruption caused the space around Voyager 1 to echo like a bell last spring and provided the scientists with the information they\u00a0needed, convincing them the boundary had been crossed in August of last year.<\/p>\n

“It took us 10 seconds to realise we were in interstellar space,” said\u00a0Don Gurnett, a Voyager scientist at the University of Iowa who led the new\u00a0research, published online in the journal Science.<\/i><\/p>\n

Voyager 2 trails behind its sister ship by about two billion miles. Both spacecraft will run out of nuclear fuel and will have to power\u00a0down their instruments, perhaps by 2025.<\/p>\n

At current speed, it would take Voyager 1 more than 70,000 years to reach the nearest extra-terrestrial star, Proxima Centauri, were it travelling in that direction.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US space probe Voyager 1 has crossed a new frontier, becoming humanity’s first spacecraft ever to leave the solar system, NASA has said. Thirty-six years after it was launched from Earth on a tour of the outer planets, the plutonium-powered spacecraft is more than 11 billion miles from the Sun in interstellar space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}