NASA's Voyager 1 Probe Has Left Solar System: Study
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft — the farthest-flung object created by human hands — has left the solar system forever, a new study suggests...
Posts: 884 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Yes, out past the heliopause. It's too bad the imaging systems have been disabled; although it might not be scientifically useful, it would be interesting to have a picture of the Sun taken from outside the solar system; kind of like an ironic counterpoint to the magnificent "blue marble" photographs of the Earth from the Moon.
Posts: 1459 | Registered: Dec 2010
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I'm so glad it didn't bounce off some invisible barrier and confirm my lifelong fear that our solar system is trapped in a giant fishbowl type situation.
Next step is the aliens returning it with a polite "Please keep your trash off our lawn" note attached to it.
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I have often speculated about what would happen if the speed of light barrier is a localized phenomenon, restricted to stellar systems.
What would happen if, once a ship or probe escaped the final boundary of a star system the speed-of-light limitations no longer applied? Or perhaps the speed of light is artificially decreased by the warping effect of a stellar mass, and once outside the limits of that effect, the true speed of light becomes something like 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles per second?
Posts: 884 | Registered: Feb 2012
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A localized stellar mass is only one minor gravity well to contend with. Good old Sol is caught in local stellar clusters' gravity, and galactic gravity, local galaxy cluster gravity, and the gravity of the cosmos. Strange dark matter and forces, though, are hyperinflating the universe. The Big Shred caused by those dark strangers is theorized to be looming some twelve or so billion years in the future.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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quote:Originally posted by MattLeo: Yes, out past the heliopause. It's too bad the imaging systems have been disabled; although it might not be scientifically useful, it would be interesting to have a picture of the Sun taken from outside the solar system; kind of like an ironic counterpoint to the magnificent "blue marble" photographs of the Earth from the Moon.
Digital astronomy programs simulate what the Sun would like like from any reasonable distance. Celestia freeware is a marvelous program for exploring the local galactic environment, simplified though, in that stars and planets oustide our solarsphere display using basic 3-D modeling and skinning textures. The Sun from the distance of Voyager looks like a fuzzy pinhole in a black curtain with larger, more brilliant stars predominating.
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The reports in the media this morning say that NASA is repudiating the study and claiming Voyager 1 hasn't left the solar system after all. Here's one:
Ah, well. Maybe when Voyager 1 returns to Earth wanting to cleanse the planet of its carbon units, maybe then we'll find out when it really left the solar system.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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