Wednesday, June 20, 2012 4:03:18 AM
Data From NASA's Voyager 1 Point to Interstellar Future
Voyagers in the Heliosheath (Artist Concept)
This artist's concept shows NASA's two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. After more than 33 years of travel, the two Voyager spacecraft will soon reach interstellar space, which is the space between stars.
Our sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble around our solar system known as the heliosphere. The solar wind travels at supersonic speeds until it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. That part of our solar system is shown in dark blue. Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock in December 2004 and Voyager 2 did so in August 2007. Beyond the termination shock is the heliosheath, shown in gray, where the solar wind dramatically slows down and heats up. Outside those two areas is territory dominated by the interstellar wind, which is blowing from the left in this image. As the interstellar wind approaches the heliosphere, a bow shock forms, indicated by the bright arc.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
[ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/multimedia/pia13892Label.html ]
2012-177
June 14, 2012
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.
"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."
The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.
"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Stone. "More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."
This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft's two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.
The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft. While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction. Such analysis will take weeks, and the Voyager team is currently crunching the numbers of its latest data set.
"When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old," said Stone. "Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be -- or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it."
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun. Both are operating as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, an extended mission to explore the solar system outside the neighborhood of the outer planets and beyond. NASA's Voyagers are the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.
The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager .
DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-177
===
Particles point way for Nasa's Voyager
15 June 2012
[...]
Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977.
The probes' initial goal was to survey the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, a task they completed in 1989.
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
===
VOYAGER 1 BREAKS THROUGH BORDERS OF SOLAR SYSTEM ON WAY TO BECOMING LIFE FORM BENT ON DESTROYING EARTH
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
June 17 2012
Washington, D.C. – In a few days, perhaps weeks, Voyager 1 will become the first manmade object to leave our solar system. The probe had been initially designed for one task, to travel to the large gas giants in our solar system, snap a few pictures, and send them back, a task which should only have taken a few years.
Now, 34 years later the probe is still going strong and still sending back images of our little neighbourhood, a process which will continue to at least 2025 when it is predicted the probe will run out of fuel.
Beyond the influence of the Sun, though, there may not be that much for Voyager to record and send back. From all analysis, the space between our solar system and the next is effectively empty outside intermittent pieces of debris hurtling around. As Voyager gets further and further away the likelihood of it returning anything of real value gradually diminishes, unless of course the plot of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ turns out to be an accurate prediction of the life of the probe, in which case it will soon become conscious and eventually return to Earth accidentally trying to destroy all of us.
“When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old. Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be — or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it,” said Ed Stone of the Voyager project [ http://www.universetoday.com/95844/voyager-1-breaking-through-the-borders-of-the-solar-system/ ].
Voyager will, even after it loses power, continue to travel through space which will likely increase its chances of melding with another species and fulfilling the predictions in the film.
The eventual return of Voyager, as it was in the film, will likely be met with hostility and amazement.
“The Voyager vessels are really remarkable not only because of what they have been able to do, what they have been able to send back to us, but also because of their sheer durability. I mean we say all the time they don’t build things like they used to and that is very much the case with Voyager. I can’t imagine any of our current ships lasting this long,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “Of course I couldn’t have imagined this one doing that either so that shows my imagination may not be as great as I think it is. Thankfully there are people out there with greater minds and ambition than I.”
Voyager 2 will also eventually break through our solar system though is less likely, at least according to Star Trek lore, to become sentient and destructive.
“We have to be realistic about this. The hard truth is that Star Trek is not the future, it’s not predictive. True, some of the technologies have come to pass but generally speaking the scenarios depicted are completely fictional, more extrapolations than predictions and predicting something that complex, well, that would be nothing short of a miracle,” continued Poe. “Unless the writers were time travellers, though I’d imagine time travellers would have something better to do than write motion pictures, especially ones that would become so poorly received. They really should have seen that coming. Anyways, back to Voyager. Hopefully it doesn’t come back and try to destroy us but if it does we’d better be ready.”
The probe has not yet sent back anything indicating that it has found alien life...yet.
Copyright 2012 ScrapeTV.com
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Science/pages-5/Voyager-1-breaks-through-borders-of-Solar-System-on-way-to-becoming-life-form-bent-on-destroying-Earth-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side-2012-06-17.html
===
'STAR TREK: The Motion Picture' in 10 minutes
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76781396 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75720486 and preceding (and any future following)
Voyagers in the Heliosheath (Artist Concept)
This artist's concept shows NASA's two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. After more than 33 years of travel, the two Voyager spacecraft will soon reach interstellar space, which is the space between stars.
Our sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble around our solar system known as the heliosphere. The solar wind travels at supersonic speeds until it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. That part of our solar system is shown in dark blue. Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock in December 2004 and Voyager 2 did so in August 2007. Beyond the termination shock is the heliosheath, shown in gray, where the solar wind dramatically slows down and heats up. Outside those two areas is territory dominated by the interstellar wind, which is blowing from the left in this image. As the interstellar wind approaches the heliosphere, a bow shock forms, indicated by the bright arc.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
[ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/multimedia/pia13892Label.html ]
2012-177
June 14, 2012
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.
"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."
The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.
"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Stone. "More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."
This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft's two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.
The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft. While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction. Such analysis will take weeks, and the Voyager team is currently crunching the numbers of its latest data set.
"When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old," said Stone. "Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be -- or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it."
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun. Both are operating as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, an extended mission to explore the solar system outside the neighborhood of the outer planets and beyond. NASA's Voyagers are the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.
The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager .
DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-177
===
Particles point way for Nasa's Voyager
15 June 2012
[...]
Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977.
The probes' initial goal was to survey the outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, a task they completed in 1989.
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
===
VOYAGER 1 BREAKS THROUGH BORDERS OF SOLAR SYSTEM ON WAY TO BECOMING LIFE FORM BENT ON DESTROYING EARTH
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
June 17 2012
Washington, D.C. – In a few days, perhaps weeks, Voyager 1 will become the first manmade object to leave our solar system. The probe had been initially designed for one task, to travel to the large gas giants in our solar system, snap a few pictures, and send them back, a task which should only have taken a few years.
Now, 34 years later the probe is still going strong and still sending back images of our little neighbourhood, a process which will continue to at least 2025 when it is predicted the probe will run out of fuel.
Beyond the influence of the Sun, though, there may not be that much for Voyager to record and send back. From all analysis, the space between our solar system and the next is effectively empty outside intermittent pieces of debris hurtling around. As Voyager gets further and further away the likelihood of it returning anything of real value gradually diminishes, unless of course the plot of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ turns out to be an accurate prediction of the life of the probe, in which case it will soon become conscious and eventually return to Earth accidentally trying to destroy all of us.
“When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old. Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be — or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it,” said Ed Stone of the Voyager project [ http://www.universetoday.com/95844/voyager-1-breaking-through-the-borders-of-the-solar-system/ ].
Voyager will, even after it loses power, continue to travel through space which will likely increase its chances of melding with another species and fulfilling the predictions in the film.
The eventual return of Voyager, as it was in the film, will likely be met with hostility and amazement.
“The Voyager vessels are really remarkable not only because of what they have been able to do, what they have been able to send back to us, but also because of their sheer durability. I mean we say all the time they don’t build things like they used to and that is very much the case with Voyager. I can’t imagine any of our current ships lasting this long,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “Of course I couldn’t have imagined this one doing that either so that shows my imagination may not be as great as I think it is. Thankfully there are people out there with greater minds and ambition than I.”
Voyager 2 will also eventually break through our solar system though is less likely, at least according to Star Trek lore, to become sentient and destructive.
“We have to be realistic about this. The hard truth is that Star Trek is not the future, it’s not predictive. True, some of the technologies have come to pass but generally speaking the scenarios depicted are completely fictional, more extrapolations than predictions and predicting something that complex, well, that would be nothing short of a miracle,” continued Poe. “Unless the writers were time travellers, though I’d imagine time travellers would have something better to do than write motion pictures, especially ones that would become so poorly received. They really should have seen that coming. Anyways, back to Voyager. Hopefully it doesn’t come back and try to destroy us but if it does we’d better be ready.”
The probe has not yet sent back anything indicating that it has found alien life...yet.
Copyright 2012 ScrapeTV.com
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Science/pages-5/Voyager-1-breaks-through-borders-of-Solar-System-on-way-to-becoming-life-form-bent-on-destroying-Earth-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side-2012-06-17.html
===
'STAR TREK: The Motion Picture' in 10 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDF3Kufh6c
===
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76781396 and preceding (and any future following)
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
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