Voyager Probes Not Out of the Solar System Just Yet
In 1977, the twin Voyager probes were launched by NASA with a radical mission in mind: after studying Jupiter and Saturn, scientists and engineers hoped the probes would become the first-ever human-made objects to exit the solar system.
Nearly 35 years later, data coming back from one of the probes indicates that they’re close but haven’t made it out of the solar system just yet.
According to a study published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, Voyager One is now approximately 111 astronomical units from the sun—meaning that it is 111 times farther from the sun than is the Earth. However, even drifting at this great distance, the probes continue to transmit back fascinating information about this previously uncharted area of the solar system, known as the heliosheath, where the outgoing particles of solar wind emanating from the sun are slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.
(via project-argus)
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