News of the Voyager missions - in flight since 1977

[Rocket Pooch]

Voyager is about to leave the solar system

"Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system's final frontier," said Dr. Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/voyager_agu.html

[Rick]

Voyager probes celebrate 30 years

The US space agency's (Nasa) venerable Voyager mission is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Its two probes were launched within weeks of each other in 1977 to make a detailed study of the outer planets.

The probes were then sent on trajectories that will eventually take them out of the Solar System and into interstellar space.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6979696.stm
And of course: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

[mickw]

Voyager 2's journey toward interstellar space has revealed surprising insights into the energy and magnetic forces at the solar system's outer edge, and confirmed the solar system's squashed shape.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to send data to Earth more than 30 years after they first launched. During the 1990s, Voyager 1 became the farthest manmade object in space

More:  http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080702-voyager-crosses-shock.html

[Mike]

Voyager 2 has been in space for 30 years. It has sent back data that show exotic particles from outside the solar system dominate the outer edge of our solar system. That means it's much more complex out there than we thought.

More: http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2008/07/voyager-2-unrav.html

[Mike]

Have aliens hijacked Voyager 2 spacecraft ?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/wacky/have-aliens-hijacked-voyager-2-spacecraft/story-e6frev20-1225865566982

[Ian]

nope, it's become self-aware.

I know this because I've seen Startrek: The Motion Picture...

[Fay]

Yes, I think Voyager 2 realised what a lot of tosh was on the disc & has destroyed it!!!!!!!

[PhilB]

So it's sending back data in an unknown format. Hmmm, couldn't simply be that it's broke, could it?

[mickw]

It may be decades before humanity sets foot on Mars, but we're only five years away from sampling the vast stretches of interstellar space beyond our solar system for the first time, researchers say.

NASA's twin unmanned Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977, are streaking toward the edge of the solar system at around 37,000 mph (60,000 kph). At that rate, they'll probably pop out of our sun's sphere of influence and into interstellar space by 2016 or so, according to mission scientists.

"They are about to break free of the solar system," Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., said during a media teleconference yesterday (April 28). "We are trying to get outside of our bubble, into interstellar space, to directly measure what is there."

More: Still doing cool stuff

[mickw]

The iconic Voyager 2 spacecraft celebrated its 35th birthday Monday (Aug. 20) in a milestone for NASA's longest-running mission ever.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977

More:   Voyager

[Rick]

Cheers, Voyager: 35 Years of Exploration

September 05, 2012

What would a birthday party be without cake, music and toasts? Thirty-five years ago today, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft launched on its mission of exploration. It is now the most distant human-made object and the second-longest operating spacecraft. (Voyager 2 is the longest.) NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the Voyager spacecraft, held a celebration today.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-278

[Rick]

NASA Voyager Status Update on Voyager 1 Location

"The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. In December 2012, the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called 'the magnetic highway' where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed."

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-107

[Rick]

Voyager probe 'leaves Solar System'

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.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24026153

[Rick]

NASA Spacecraft Embarks on Historic Journey Into Interstellar Space

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun.

New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our sun are still evident. A report on the analysis of this new data, an effort led by Don Gurnett and the plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

"Now that we have new, key data, we believe this is mankind's historic leap into interstellar space," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "The Voyager team needed time to analyze those observations and make sense of them. But we can now answer the question we've all been asking -- 'Are we there yet?' Yes, we are."

More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/voyager20130912.html

[Rick]

Sun Sends More 'Tsunami Waves' to Voyager 1

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new "tsunami wave" from the sun as it sails through interstellar space. Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun's bubble, entering a new frontier.

"Normally, interstellar space is like a quiet lake," said Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, the mission's project scientist since 1972. "But when our sun has a burst, it sends a shock wave outward that reaches Voyager about a year later. The wave causes the plasma surrounding the spacecraft to sing."

Data from this newest tsunami wave generated by our sun confirm that Voyager is in interstellar space -- a region between the stars filled with a thin soup of charged particles, also known as plasma. The mission has not left the solar system -- it has yet to reach a final halo of comets surrounding our sun -- but it broke through the wind-blown bubble, or heliosphere, encasing our sun. Voyager is the farthest human-made probe from Earth, and the first to enter the vast sea between stars.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-221