Voyager: Still dancing 17 billion km from Earth Skip to main content

Voyager: Still dancing 17 billion km from Earth


Voyager One, Nasa Voyager is approaching the edge of the bubble of charged particles the Sun has thrown out into space

Related Stories

The extraordinary Voyager 1 spacecraft is demonstrating its nimbleness more than 30 years after leaving Earth.
At the astonishing distance of 17.4 billion km, the Nasa probe is the most far-flung object made by humans.
But it seems age and remoteness are no barriers to this veteran explorer.
Voyager is executing a series of roll manoeuvres to get one of its instruments into the optimum position to measure particles sweeping away from the Sun.
Controllers at the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, report a perfect response from the probe.
"I liken Voyager like an old car," said project manager Suzanne Dodds. "It's got simple electronics, not a lot of fancy gadgets - but because of that it can operate for longer; it's not as finicky."
Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 on a tour of the outer planets. Since completing that mission, it has been making the push for deep space.
The probe is heading in the general direction of the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy and will, in the next few years, leave the space dominated by the influence of our Sun and enter the province between the stars - interstellar space.
Scientists know that to be the case because of the way the solar wind is behaving at Voyager's current location.
This stream of charged particles forms a bubble around our Solar System known as the heliosphere. The wind travels at "supersonic" speed until it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock.
At this point, the wind then slows dramatically and heats up in a region termed the heliosheath. Voyager has determined the velocity of the wind at its location has now slowed to zero. Very simply put, Voyager has reached the domain where the solar wind is starting to turn back on itself as it pushes up against the particles of interstellar space.
The new manoeuvres are designed to enable Voyager 1's Low Energy Charged Particle (LECP) instrument to investigate precisely what is going on around it.
"It counts the particles and measures their direction," explained Suzanne Dodds. "This will give us a much better picture of what's happening with the solar wind close to the heliopause (the "official" edge of the Solar System). It could be that as we do these measures we see its direction change. All we have out there is models and every time we get data the models don't quite fit what Voyager sees, and then we have to update the models."
On Monday this week Voyager rolled 70 degrees anticlockwise as seen from Earth from its normal orientation. It held the position by spinning gyroscopes for two hours, 33 minutes. The veteran last performed such a manoeuvre in 1990 when it took pictures of the planets it was leaving behind.
Once complete, Voyager rolled back and locked on to its guide star, Alpha Centauri.
Voyager 1 will do more roll-and-holds this week, and if the spacecraft continues to function well it will execute a series of weekly rolls to gather particle data every three months.
The Voyager 2 spacecraft which was also launched in 1977 is not quite as far from Earth. It is a mere 14 billion kilometres away. At these great distances, communication with the probes is a lengthy business. The one-way travel time for a radio message to get to Voyager 1 is now 16 hours.
"People love Voyager I think because the mission has lasted so long. We're still talking to it and it's just so far out in space; people have a real attachment to it. It did its grand tour past the planets and it just goes on, on this voyage of discovery."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12688246

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do

Is 160 enough? One Indian man's family

By Sumnima Udas , CNN October 31, 2011 -- Updated 0857 GMT (1657 HKT) Ziona, center, with his has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren in rural Baktwang village, India. STORY HIGHLIGHTS One man in India is the patriarch of a family of 160 in rural India Ziona, who only goes by his first name, has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren. Ziona's father, Chana, founded the Christian sect in Baktwang that promotes polygamy "I never wanted to get married but that's the path God has chosen for me" Mizoram, India (CNN) -- The world's population hits 7 billion this week, but Ziona, the patriarch of what may be the biggest family in the world, is not bothered. "I don't care about overpopulation in India ... I believe God has chosen us to be like this (have big families). Those who are born into this family don't want to leave this tradition so we just keep growing and growing," he says with a smile. Ziona, who only goes by his f