Voyager 1 Has Left Solar System, NASA Confirms
Voyager 1 has left the solar system, with confirmation from NASA.
A voyage begun over 36 years ago has finally sent a man-made object where no man has gone before. Thursday, NASA confirmed that that the probe known as Voyager 1 has indeed left the solar system and is now floating in interstellar space. Initially a subject of heated debate among scientists, as previously reported by The Inquisitr, Voyager 1 has been outside the solar system since the suggested date of August 25, 2012.
John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, says that the exiting of the solar system by the probe in question is “one of the most significant technological achievements in the annals of the history of science.”
Now before we get too excited and go searching for Captain Kirk, we should remember that it took the probe a little more than half of an average human lifetime to leave the “solar bubble.” We are still a long way away from sending teams into space that far, but now we know that it can be done with man-made objects.
NASA’s confirmation that Voyager 1 has left the solar system had been postponed due to the evidence we now have based on space plasma density. The data shows that the probe is now outside the heliopause, or the bubble of energetic particles that surround our Sun and its planets, meaning that it is now floating in the dark vastness of space outside the solar system.
Better late than never: NASA confirms Voyager 1 exited the solar system more than a year ago http://t.co/mV3BlOZczU
— Monte Morin (@montemorin) September 12, 2013
Marc Swisdak of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland has said that Voyager 1 is still collecting data and telling us what it’s like out there. He adds:
“If you just looked at that data, you’d think it’s pretty clear that we’ve actually crossed a boundary. We’re no longer in the place where the solar system particles are being made, and we’re actually out in the interstellar medium.”
So it is official: In an event as historically and scientifically significant as the moon landing, Voyager 1 has left the solar system as confirmed by NASA.
