Voyager probe 'leaves Solar System'

[xxMATTGxx]

I thought this was rather cool and interesting and may as well share it with anyone who hasn't read about it yet.

The Voyager-1 spacecraft has become the first manmade object to leave the Solar System.

Scientists say the probe's instruments indicate it has moved beyond the bubble of hot gas from our Sun and is now moving in the space between the stars.

Launched in 1977, Voyager was sent initially to study the outer planets, but then just kept on going.

Today, the veteran Nasa mission is almost 19 billion km (12 billion miles) from home.

This distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers here on Earth.

"This is really a key milestone that we'd been hoping we would reach when we started this project over 40 years ago - that we would get a spacecraft into interstellar space," said Prof Ed Stone, the chief scientist on the venture.

"Scientifically it's a major milestone, but also historically - this is one of those journeys of exploration like circumnavigating the globe for the first time or having a footprint on the Moon for the first time. This is the first time we've begun to explore the space between the stars," he told BBC News.

Sensors on Voyager had been indicating for some time that its local environment had changed.

The data that finally convinced the mission team to call the jump to interstellar space came from the probe's Plasma Wave Science (PWS) instrument. This can measure the density of charged particles in Voyager's vicinity.

Readings taken in April/May this year and October/November last year revealed a near-100-fold jump in the number of protons occupying every cubic metre of space.

Read the full story by going to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24026153

[lawrawrrr]

i thought this was SO COOL and so many people don't even like understand why it's so cool but omg

[lemons]

12 billion miles wow

[Chippiewill]

12 billion miles wow

10 digits on the odometer.

[Cerys]

that is actually beautiful

*that is the actual pic isnt it? lmfaoo*

[dbgtz]

Hopefully this doesn't crash into another planet causing the people to declare intergalactic war on us.

[MilksAreUs]

Apparently, as hitting another planet beyond the solar system, it recorded a wierd shrieking noise

[lawrawrrr]

This is Voyager 1, launched in 1977

It's main mission was to perform a flyby both Jupiter and Saturn, taking high resolution pictures of both planets and their moons and sending them back to Earth.

It was also responsible for this picture, famously entitled "The Pale Blue Dot". A picture of our own planet Earth as a lonely spec of pale light.

It was confirmed today that Voyager has now succeeded in being the first man-made object to have entered the realm of what we call Interstellar Space, and continues to travel away from us at 17 km per second at this very moment.

However, attached on the side of Voyager is a very odd-looking disk.

On this disk can be found a very peculiar collection of scribbles and symbols. No words or written language of human dialect can be found here, for they are not meant for humans.

Inside the disk can be found a golden record. On it, a vast collection of audio sounds, songs, languages, and pictures of our home, of our planet. Earth.

The golden record was a project created by Dr. Carl Sagan. After the Pioneer Missions, NASA and Carl felt the need to attach a type of "Time Capsule" to both Voyager and Voyager II.

The collection of scribbles and symbols can be read using the universal cosmic language of any advanced civilization. Mathematics. After discovering how to read the information, the information from the golden record can then be extracted.

Music from Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar

Mozart

Goro Yamaguchi

And even Chuck Berry can be found on the record.

Also included are digitized photographs, 116 in all, including pictures of planets like Jupiter.

Earthly landscapes of Snake River and Grand Tetons

Examples of food consumption

Of instruments and sheet music

And even a picture of a page from Issac Newton's System of the World.

Carl knew the importance of creating such a record. Putting the memories and works of mankind onto Voyager in hopes that someone, somewhere, would later find it. That they would learn about a small fragile planet called Earth. That there exists creatures with creativity and intelligence. Creatures with intrest in the cosmos.

We have tossed a message in the bottle into a vast cosmic ocean. Perhaps we will later overtake Voyager with the new technology of tomorrow. Perhaps we will never again find the lonely spacecraft as it drifts further into interstellar space... Regardless, it matters little. What matters is that we humans have sent a message of yearning; A yearning to be apart of something bigger than ourselves. We have voiced our desire with this record. We wish to become citizens of the cosmos...

[-:Undertaker:-]

I have to say that while it's interesting, I do hope that creatures in outer-space never find it - who afterall said little green men are friendly?

[karter]

Did it capture Pluto? because it hasn't been photographed yet, unless you consider dots of lights as photographs of planets