18 billion kilometers away, "Voyager 1" reaches threshold for ... - ABC Online

Nasa spacecraft “Voyager 1″ soon leaving our solar system. In 18 billion kilometers from the Sun in 1977 launched Space veteran sends signals to the earth -. Now need 17 hours

The spacecraft “Voyager 1″ is a pushed forward previously unknown region on the border of our solar system. The three groups of researchers report in the U.S. journal “Science”. The started almost 36 years ago, space veteran is now more than 18 billion kilometers from Earth. For comparison, between Earth and the Sun is a distance of about 149 million kilometers. Voyager 1 is now almost 124 times farther away.

The scientists expect that the probe will soon leave our solar system and is immersed in the interstellar space. The boundary of our solar system, the heliopause, is defined as the place where the ends of the magnetic influence of the Sun. Where the constant particle from the sun encounters the incoming interstellar particles and the solar magnetic field bends. Astronomers call the border region before the heliopause, the Helio vagina. “Voyager 1″, the Ambassador of the farthest humanity has reached the Helio vagina, but not yet crossed.

number of interstellar particles decreases to

On 25 August of last year the number of solar particles fell into “Voyagers’ instruments suddenly by more than a factor of 1000. At the same time, the number of interstellar particles increased by almost ten percent as a team to Stamatios Krimigis of Johns Hopkins University in “Science” reported. This is a clear sign that the spacecraft approaches the interstellar space.

Same time, the direction of the solar magnetic field, however, did not change as a group to Leonard Burlaga’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S. space agency Nasa in “Science” writes . This observation showed that “Voyager 1″ unexpected “depletion zone” Helio vagina have achieved.

Last stage on the journey to interstellar space

This region is like a magnet highway for electrically charged particles, researchers explain the “Voyager” project scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology, whose group has published a third technical article in “Science”, and the parts of the observations already at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union was presented in December. For the magnetic field lines, the highway of the sun are associated with interstellar field lines. The liberty of the electrically charged solar particles that had previously not been mistaken as a narrow road network to and fro, hinauszusausen into space.