Comments on: Voyager at 90 AU

Voyager at 90 AU

brownpau — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:04:06 -0800

Far, far away. Today, Voyager 1 will reach 90 AU from the sun, around which distance it is expected to cross the "termination shock," finally crossing into the fuzzy boundary between the heliosphere and true interstellar space. (Yes, it's taken that long to get there.) Some even think that the termination shock has already been reached, but then re-expanded past the spacecraft. Tears need not be shed yet for these distant explorers: both Voyagers have juice till about 2020, and the mission remains very much alive. (No word, however, on a possible return to the Creator.)

By: brownpau

brownpau — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:08:45 -0800

Aside: Adobe GoLive... in... spaaa-aace!

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:14:45 -0800

Kid Koala needs a copy of that gold record, man. Great link, brownpau!

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:15:52 -0800

I meant "links," of course. The whole durn fpp is very nice.

By: anathema

anathema — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:16:52 -0800

For people like me who don't know anything about "Termination Shock".

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:22:39 -0800

Remember kids, one AU is 92,955,887.6 miles If your too lazy to do the math, the Voyager 1 is roughly 8366029884 miles away. There is no God after all!

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:24:45 -0800

By the way, you can search the known universe with Celesta, the three dimensional space simulation. 3D Card recommended.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:32:48 -0800

"There is no God after all!" Oh ye of little faith. There may be no old grey haired man on a throne in the clouds. We've known that for some time. Didn't need V-ger for that one. Oh. And Celesta rocks the hiz haus.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:32:49 -0800

After we get past the moon, I start thinking in terms of light seconds because the miles are just too incomprehensibly many.

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:35:08 -0800

V'Ger REQUIRES the information!!!!!!!!

By: riffola

riffola — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:41:12 -0800

90 Astronomical Units = 12.4751304 light hours. That's purdy far!

By: muppetboy

muppetboy — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:49:27 -0800

really puts interstellar distances in perspective though... the closest stars being some light YEARS away, this probe we sent up has taken the better part of my lifetime to get only 0.5 light days away

By: metaxa

metaxa — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:56:40 -0800

[this is *very* good]

By: nickmark

nickmark — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:06:38 -0800

Wait -- if "termination shock" means the point "at which the solar wind is thought to slow to subsonic speed" (from anathema's link), how slow is that exactly, given that there's no sound in space?

By: yhbc

yhbc — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:36:25 -0800

Very subtle and clever call-out, brownpau.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:42:23 -0800

(Whatchootawkin'bout, yhbc?;) Oh, oh, one more thing I forgot to include in the post: Voyager 1's family portrait of the solar system. Whoa.

By: anathema

anathema — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:53:48 -0800

this probe we sent up has taken the better part of my lifetime to get only 0.5 light days away Amazing. Completely mind boggling.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:58:22 -0800

Nickmark: this site on how to replicate the heliosphere in your kitchen sink might help.

By: BentPenguin

BentPenguin — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 14:32:10 -0800

put into perspective: - if the galaxy was 100 KM wide -within 20 meters in any direction sun would be approximately 20 other stars - the nearest star would be 3-4 meters away the probe would be 1.5 mm away.

By: thomcatspike

thomcatspike — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 14:33:55 -0800

roughly 8366029884 miles away. There is no God after all! Don't recall "8 turned side ways" equaling 8366029884 miles. Plus it is still making its journey, go! go! Voyager 1.

By: nickmark

nickmark — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:01:57 -0800

Johnny -- I was being flip, but that's actually very interesting, thanks. I think I'm gonna go turn on the tap and make a solar system!

By: crawl

crawl — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 16:02:35 -0800

Bentpenguin -- Are you CKW over on slashdot, or did you just copy his/her post?

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 16:52:52 -0800

Return to the creator? Pah! Everybody knows that was Voyager 6. You know, NASA had better pull their finger out and build a few more, or we're gonna have one seriously messed-up space-time continuum pretty soon... (No, not a Trekker, honest. No, really.)

By: dg

dg — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 22:03:30 -0800

[this is ~~good~~ excellent] the probe would be 1.5 mm away. My head hurts just thinking about this.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 22:57:01 -0800

What a pity the word "awesome" has been so overly used in recent times, for here are some things worthy of the word. The distance Voyager has traveled and the achievement of getting it there, and the relative closeness compared to interstellar distance. And yes, the post. AWESOME.

By: Fezboy!

Fezboy! — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 06:48:12 -0800

[this is tasty!] Thanks for a well-constructed and interesting fpp!