It’s official, Voyager 1, that Earth-ambassador for 1970s technology, has left the heliosphere – the bubble of charged particles and magnetic fields that surrounds the sun and its planetary progeny. Scientists back-calculated that it likely left this boundary on or around August 25, which coincidentally is when my wife and I hosted the biggest party ever. I knew something had to be in Galactic alignment.
I’m sure I’ve seen this same announcement at periodic intervals over the last five years. Or maybe it was ‘Almost leaving’ those prior times. Because Voyager actually did have to leave before the scientists tracking the spaceship could really be sure it had. This time it really is official. Apparently a fortuitous burst of activity from the sun caused the plasma near the spacecraft to vibrate, which allowed scientists to calculate how much was present. The plasma beyond the heliosphere is about 40 times denser than inside it, giving the clues that pinned down Voyager 1’s location. Beyond the heliosphere the plasma (BTW it’s a lot less dense there than around Earth – about 10,000 times less) grows colder and the outward pressure from the sun tailors off, causing it to grow relatively more dense than the plasma inside the limit of the heliosphere.
Voyager 1 is currently 18.77 billion kilometres (11.66 billion mi) from Earth, entering a vast new region of space where nothing else has been before.
So far Voyager 1 has seen the expected drop in solar particles and jump in cosmic rays, but has not observed the predicted shift in magnetic field orientation. No doubt the first of many surprises. Right now scientists are taking another look at the models that predicted this change in magnetic field.
This is a remarkable feat for humanity, but I can’t help but compare this with the sort of achievements outlined in fiction. I recently re-watched Event Horizon, where the experimental ship of the same name returned from some ‘other space’ to Saturn after being missing for almost a decade. Coming through a black hole no less, courtesy of its on-board singularity in the Gravity Drive. So when is this? Why in 2047. The critic in me wonders if we will even have a human footprint on Mars by then, let alone vast spaceships with stasis chambers roaming the solar system.
So are you encouraged, inspired, or left flat by Voyager’s achievement?
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons blog.
Mad Genius Club 
21 responses to “Voyager 1 Enters Interstellar Space”
When it comes back looking for Whales maybe. 🙂 Or hits the “No Trespassing” sign.
Ha! Nice one, Mauser:) Vyger returns!
Encouraged because it means we’ve been trying for a long time, and Voyager reaching interstellar space means that it can be reached. It’s a little flat, however, because we’ve been trying for a long time and Voyager only just reached interstellar space. This is hard, and the distances are huge. In fiction, we get very little sense of that (at least, not in the fiction I’ve been reading lately–and do enjoy immensely).
And the trying is very important.
The anniversary of the moon landing, however, gets me down. It’s time to go back.
I will say, that is probably one of the things I do like about Weber’s Honorverse — he realizes space is really big! His alternate future required over fifteen hundred years of sub-light-speed spaceflight before we figured out how to go faster than light.
I’m going to have to try those again. My friend who told me about Bujold likes those. I liked Bujold, but must re-try Weber I can see.
I would suggest starting either with On Basilisk Station, which is free — http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743435710/0743435710.htm — or one of his short story collections. He’s unfortunately gotten a bit GRRMartin-ish with storylines that are slow and bounce around.
Will do. Thank you kindly. I’m on the last book of Sabrina Chase’s Sequoyah trilogy, so this might be just what I need.
*With his latest books. So I suggest starting when he was better about getting a whole story in one book to decide if you like the characters enough to keep going. I do, but I’m sympathetic to those who aren’t.
Hi, Amy. Thanks for the link.
The distances are huge. To really get out into Interstellar space I think we are talking generation ships. For Voyager 1 though – I just can’t help but be excited. It’s such a tribute to the skills of these engineers and mission scientists who conceived that craft and guided its journey. And it’s real:)
Speaking of generation ships, I just re-read Orphans of the Sky. There’s just so much that can go wrong.
Such a long time to even leave the Solar System . . . It leaves me with the uneasy feeling that with so much _nothing_ in between here and even the nearest star, the desire to go will be quashed by the realization of the timespan required to do so.
I know what you mean, but there’s a whole lot of nothing between here and Mars, and a lot of people want to go.
Me too, Pam. What we really need is a reliable suspension technology – man – so much would open up then! To be realistic we need it just to get around our solar system. Chemical rockets and slingshots are still going to be our best bet for years to come.
The gradual development of new tech will help–for small lightweight probes the laser sail ideas are interesting.
But to get people out there will involve a lot of mass. Cold sleep, hibernation just above the freezing point, generation ships. Hard to say what will happen, what will really drive it. Right now, I don’t think Western culture is emotionally capable of just throwing people the right direction with no safety net, no possibility of return. Once upon a time, I wrote (in pencil, in a notebook, probably long lost) about a secret, joint Arab and Japanese interstellar colonization effort. Now, I’d make it Chinese.
It leaves me hopeful. Mainly because our media’s attention span may have shrunk to the soundbite, but it’s a good reminder that for the rest of us, we have projects that will keep going for decades after the attention has turned away. There’s a lot going on, slowly, without any nightly-news-generating explosions or disasters, and it’ll keep on going because Those In Power aren’t looking that way.
Maybe we won’t be sponsored by governments – but today’s wingsuit BASE jumpers will be tomorrow’s solar surfers, and today’s oilpatch roughnecks will be tomorrow’s asteroid miners. We have the will and the way, the thrill of pushing the envelope and the grit for hard work.
I just reread Delila and the Space Rigger, by Robert Heinlein last night. It was hard to go to sleep. The promise of Robert’s generation (I’m old too) when we knew that we couldn’t fly across space; but, there was an optimism to it. This was before Sputnik even. Yet we dreamed of space for the pure hell of it. That dream is dead, buried in Liberal defeatism and victimization. There is a feeling of ‘not in my lifetime.’ I enjoy modern Science Fiction like Ringo, Weber, Drake; however, there is no immediacy to them. There is no vision left, I think that has been the greatest lost. Writing this has given me the idea, maybe it’s an opportunity. Perhaps, there is a door open for good optimistic SiFi in the indie market.
I have to admit, I got caught on a small detail. You mentioned that the plasma was 40 times as dense. I kind of went, “Huh? Isn’t interstellar space LESS dense?” So I went and read the NASA reports. And they say it is more dense! Which leaves me pondering whether my simple model of solar systems floating in less dense space is backwards, and the sun and planets actually create a sort of bubble of lower density as they float in the thicker medium of interstellar space? But do I have time to investigate astronomic models?
The first thing that springs to my mind is, “How do they know nothing has ever been there before? Haven’t they ever heard of ancient astronaut theories?” And I agree that space exploration isn’t likely to be supported by governments. All the political will seems to be about increasing control, not about increasing options.
What’s heartening is that there are private entrepreneurs who are investing. Elon Musk has done amazing things with SpaceX, for far less money than equivalent government programs. Robert Bigelow has sub-scale models of his habitats on orbit. Mars One and Mars Direct are inspired, and Planetary Resources, with its plans to mine an asteroid is both inspired and inspiring. So, yeah, overall I guess i’m hopeful, but that’s because the private sector is stepping in. Look what we got from the internet when the government had it, and look what we get from it now.
In discussing the economics of space travel, a British economist quipped something to the effect that if the government were running the airlines a ticket from New York to Washington would cost $10,000 and flights would be once a month.