35 years later, Voyager 1 is heading for the stars

[longnecker]

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.

Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space — the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.
Perhaps no one on Earth will relish the moment more than 76-year-old Ed Stone, who has toiled on the project from the start.
"We're anxious to get outside and find what's out there," he said.
When NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth's grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.
Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.
Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way — the space between stars. Once it plows through, scientists expect a calmer environment by comparison.
When that would happen is anyone's guess. Voyager 1 is in uncharted celestial territory. One thing is clear: The boundary that separates the solar system and interstellar space is near, but it could take days, months or years to cross that milestone.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager 2, which celebrated its launch anniversary two weeks ago, trails behind at 9 billion miles from the sun.
They're still ticking despite being relics of the early Space Age.
Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod — an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano — is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder. Today's spacecraft use digital memory.
The Voyagers' original goal was to tour Jupiter and Saturn, and they sent back postcards of Jupiter's big red spot and Saturn's glittery rings. They also beamed home a torrent of discoveries: erupting volcanoes on the Jupiter moon Io; hints of an ocean below the icy surface of Europa, another Jupiter moon; signs of methane rain on the Saturn moon Titan. Read more
http://www.mediacomtoday.com/news/re...ps=1011&page=1

[Panama Girl]

See you in a few hundred years, V-GER!

[max1]

This has got to be the story of the year, I just cannot get over how cool it is.

[Bellicose]

Not to burst anyone's giant plasma bubble, but wouldn't it be funny if it got to the edge and it bumped into something likemy big glass bubble surrounding everything. Like it was some Truman Show stuff.....lol

Dont understand one or two things though about this. How is the 68 kilobytes still recording things, should all the memory not be used up by now? How are we Earthlings still getting a signal fom something 9 billion miles from the sun, let alone 11 billion miles? Which means we are roughly 8,906,980,00 miles from the sun, let alone 10,906,980,000 miles. When I can barely get a WiFi signal some 50 some feet away, through walls and up or down steps. Why cant I get my hands on that kind of signal?

[max1]

When I can barely get a WiFi signal some 50 some feet away, through walls and up or down steps. Why cant I get my hands on that kind of signal?

Hahahah good effin point...

In the meantime here is a video, i'm sure will entertain all of us.

[Kid Lester]

Imagine if we found a UFO and it had an 8 track player on it. "Yeah, they made it all the way here, but I'm pretty sure we can still kick their ass."

[Joe Walther]

Not to burst anyone's giant plasma bubble, but wouldn't it be funny if it got to the edge and it bumped into something likemy big glass bubble surrounding everything. Like it was some Truman Show stuff.....lol

Dont understand one or two things though about this. How is the 68 kilobytes still recording things, should all the memory not be used up by now? How are we Earthlings still getting a signal fom something 9 billion miles from the sun, let alone 11 billion miles? Which means we are roughly 8,906,980,00 miles from the sun, let alone 10,906,980,000 miles. When I can barely get a WiFi signal some 50 some feet away, through walls and up or down steps. Why cant I get my hands on that kind of signal?

Great science fiction consists of about 15% science and 85% fiction. What makes it so popular is that there is enough science to make it sound credible and enough friction to keep it intriguing.

And the fact that the average U. S. citizen has absolutely no facility for things science (too much math) helps science fiction writers tremendously. Gallup’s most recent poll shows that 1 in 5 (20% American adults) believes that the Sun orbits the Earth simply because they see the Sun “moving” across the sky!

The Sun does not rise, set, or move across out sky; Earth spins counter-clockwise on its polar axis. When it has spun sufficiently enough to occult the Sun below the local horizon, it gets DARK.

Anyway, there’s no “big GLASS bubble” at the edge of our solar system or at the edge of any other solar system. Einstein nailed this down in 1905. Both, Voyager I and II, are at the edge of our SOLAR system, not the Milky Way Galaxy.

However, what I’d like to know is how you figured that “we are roughly 8,906,980,000 (to clarify, that’s about 8.907-BILLION) miles from the sun.” There is no “roughly” about it; we’re nowhere near that far from the Sun. If we were, we wouldn’t be here discussing it.

Prior to Pluto being downgraded to a dwarf planet, it was the farthest major planet from the Sun (in our solar system) at an approximate mean distance of 3.7-BILLION miles. And, while I’ve never made the trip myself, I’ve known Ed Stone—lead project director for Voyager—since 1967; and he assured me that it’s indeed COLD on Pluto. He had to take extra thermal insulated long johns!

Earth, on the other hand, orbits the Sun at a mean distance of 92,960,000 (to clarify, that’s about 93-MILLION) miles. It farthest from the Sun in the summer time (about 95-MILLION miles) and nearest to the Sun in the winter time (about 91-MILLION miles).

As for the “68-kilobytes” of memory, it was a typo on the part of U. S. News. It should have been 64-kilobytes. And, to clarify even more, it was core memory—similar to what we call RAM memory. Even more important still, it’s machine level memory (binary digits of 0’s and 1’s).

That was plenty of memory—and still is—to transmit the data that the Voyager probes would be transmitting. Digital technology as we know it didn’t exist in the early ‘70s as the Voyager mission was being designed.

Voyager is transmitting radio signals (waves) at the speed of light (approximately 186,000 miles per SECOND. These have nothing to do with wifi. But as fast as this is, it’s still going to take a minimum of about 17 days for a radio signal to travel 11-billion miles.

[longnecker]

Joe .. What kind of power source would it have to last this long and be able to transmit a signal that far??

[Bellicose]

Ok get you on the memory part, still want to be able to get an awesome signal in my house.....lol

The typo on the US News part, well I jut so happened to of made a typo as well. I put "sun" in at the end f the distances, when I actually meant to put "satellites". Sorry about that. When I was reading your comment and seen what you said about distance to the sun, I was like what in the world was he reading. Then I went back and read mine, and was like Duh, wrong word there moron. As for my how I came up with the distance to subtract, I Googled how far Earth and Sun were, and then subtracted the satellites distance with the remainder. Now that I'm thinking about it, my calculations may be a little wrong. Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll recalculate them, before coming back in here to see the answer the class has given......lol

[Joe Walther]

Joe .. What kind of power source would it have to last this long and be able to transmit a signal that far??

I apologize for the delay in getting back to this, LN; it’s been a hectic week with my daughter ending up in hospital. I’ll post a separate account of that episode!

On the matter of the stuff Voyager is sending back to us, understand that you can’t buy these from Radio Shack.

The power supply is an odd form of nuclear power that NASA developed in the late ‘60s and used for both Voyager probes. It runs everything: cameras, computers, and radio transmitters that send out the radio waves sending all that data back to us.

Pure solar power was out of the question because physicists knew that these probes would eventually be going so far beyond the Sun that it would render standard electric cells worthless.

So instead, they used a small type of nuclear generator that literally converts the heat from decaying plutonium-238 into good old fashioned electric power.

There was never a need to invent the process; it occurs naturally. All we had to do was find a way to harness that process, in a confined space and under a controlled environment. Due to weight considerations, the devices couldn’t be any larger than between 80 and 85 pounds each.

The device is not like a standard nuclear reactor which actively breaks atoms apart. This device is a nuclear type of battery that uses natural radioactive decay to produce power. It’s called a radioisotope thermionic generator. These things apply the heat from decaying plutonium to metal strips that generate electrons. It has no moving parts, no liquid flow, and no turbines.

Voyager 2, for instances carries three of them that produce in the vicinity of between 350 and 400 watts of electricity to power all of systems aboard the probe.

As far as current production--as in amps--is concerned, standard small kitchen appliances produce far more of it than these devices produce. But these units will continue working for decades to come... and without worrying about warranty claims.

How, and you can trust me on this; these “batteries” are not going to be available for our cell phones any time soon!

[Joe Walther]

Ok get you on the memory part, still want to be able to get an awesome signal in my house.....lol

The typo on the US News part, well I jut so happened to of made a typo as well. I put "sun" in at the end f the distances, when I actually meant to put "satellites". Sorry about that. When I was reading your comment and seen what you said about distance to the sun, I was like what in the world was he reading. Then I went back and read mine, and was like Duh, wrong word there moron. As for my how I came up with the distance to subtract, I Googled how far Earth and Sun were, and then subtracted the satellites distance with the remainder. Now that I'm thinking about it, my calculations may be a little wrong. Maybe if I'm bored later, I'll recalculate them, before coming back in here to see the answer the class has given......lol

By all means, feel free to check my figures; I never take it personally. And, besides, it’s always a super idea to audit everyone but God. However, in my own defense, I hold ample post-doctoral research credentials—since 1964. I’m 100% sure that my calculations concerning Earth's distance from the Sun are correct.

[Bellicose]

By all means, feel free to check my figures; I never take it personally. And, besides, it’s always a super idea to audit everyone but God. However, in my own defense, I hold ample post-doctoral research credentials—since 1964. I’m 100% sure that my calculations concerning Earth's distance from the Sun are correct.

No I was saying I would recalculate my numbers, not yours. I believe yours are right. Just think what I typed out for my calculations I actually did not do. I believe I thought it, but never actually did it.

Still wasn't bored enough to check......lol