NASA: Voyager 1 has left our solar system - Heise Newsticker

first Voyager 1 has left our solar system and reaches the interstellar space, a space probe. Meanwhile, NASA is now safe after much speculation, reported dpa. In recent months had been reported although again, the historic step was done, but you have had time to analyze the observations. “Voyager is boldly advanced into regions, has not reached the probe before,” said John Grunsfeld of the U.S. space agency. The researchers presented their findings at a press conference on Thursday.

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Artistic representation of the probe
Image: NASA Late last year, NASA had announced that the probe has reached the last region on their flight before entering interstellar space. Recent measurements have but now revealed that the probe had then already left the solar system. This is likely to happen in August 2012. Always called again this is the 25th Of August, the day on which the number of solar particles is decreased in the gauges suddenly to one thousandth. At the same time, the number of interstellar particles had increased by 10 percent.

Voyager 1′s since the 17th February 1998 the farthest from the earth device of mankind and most recently crossed the heliopause, that region of our solar system in which the particle of the sun hits interstellar particles and is finally stopped. The flow direction of the particles is therefore an indication of whether the solar system is already behind the probe. The influence of their gravitational contrast also extends beyond this area.

Voyager 1

Slideshow, 15 images

Some pictures of the mission

sister probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched at intervals of 16 days in 1977. 1979 Voyager 1 passed Jupiter and Saturn a year later. Ten years later, the probe sent back the camera and took the family portrait of our solar system, 60 frames, on which the sun and six planets are visible. Meanwhile, the probe is more than 18 billion kilometers from Earth. Relative to the Sun sets Voyager 1 more than 60,000 kilometers per hour and the back of the probe signals require 17 hours of their way to Earth.

Until at least 2020, Voyager 1 can still send data to Earth, sometime after her but his energy is depleted. You will then remove from our system and in about 40,000 years at a distance of 1.6 light years, the star Gliese 445 pass (constellation giraffe). Just as Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 carries a gold-plated copper disk with it. In the event that intelligent extraterrestrial encounter the probe, the messages are put on testimony about mankind and the earth.

The NASA Press Conference

(mho)