NASA ventures into interstellar space, "Voyager 1" the solar system ... - ABC Online

“Voyager 1″ came out a year ago from the heliosphere – the studies have now definitely proved. Since then, the spacecraft flies first manmade object through interstellar space.

left for the first time in human history a man-made object penetrated the solar system and into interstellar space. This announced the U.S. space agency Nasa. In a study published in the scientific journal “Science”, Nasa researchers call 25 August 2012 as the historic date. On this day, the Voyager 1 spacecraft left the “heliosphere, reaching a comfortable area cold and dark space, known as the interstellar space,” the authors write about the astrophysicist Donald Gurnett of the University of Iowa.

Only a few weeks ago had other researchers reported that the earthly messenger was advanced into a previously unknown region on the border of our solar system. Since 1977, when the veteran was launched in space 18 billion kilometers from the Sun. From this distance, the transmitted signals it will need 17 hours until they reach the Earth. For comparison, the distance Earth – Sun is almost 150 million km (this distance, the astronomers use as distance measure, it corresponds to an astronomical unit, shortly AE). Voyager 1 is now at the moment about 124 times farther away.

Astro Physically the heliosphere is seen the influence area of ??our home star. Which line – the so-called Heli – is defined as the point at which the magnetic influence of the sun ends. Where the constant of their emitted particle encounters the interstellar particles flowing from the universe, and the magnetic field of our central star bends. The border region before the heliopaus e in turn is called “Helio vagina.”

But the heliosphere is not a sphere, as the name suggests, but they appear deformed, because the solar system is flying rapidly in its orbit through the Milky Way. In the moving direction, it is flattened, elongated on the other side as a wind bag. When the interstellar medium by plow pushes the heliosphere as a moving vessel a kind of bow wave in front of it.

With the new study, the earlier results are confirmed, also to transition the Scout in the interstellar space at the time the 25th Dated August of last year. At that time, the gauges registered a decrease of the probe in the number of particles of the solar wind 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 reported.