Ist schon ein bisschen her, aber ich will das trotzdem im Blog haben: Wir haben das Sonnensystem verlassen! Wir sind nun offiziell interstellar! Klar, gibt es einen Unterschied, den die ganzen Hardcorenerds bemerkt haben wollen: Wir sind im interstellaren Raum, die Einflüsse des Sonnensystems sind auch für unsere Voyager Sonde noch bemerktbar. Aber: Wir sind interstellar. Das ist so unglaublich cool.

“In the end, there was general agreement that Voyager 1 was indeed outside in interstellar space,” Stone said. “But that location comes with some disclaimers – we’re in a mixed, transitional region of interstellar space. We don’t know when we’ll reach interstellar space free from the influence of our solar bubble.”

So, would the team say Voyager 1 has left the solar system? Not exactly – and that’s part of the confusion. Since the 1960s, most scientists have defined our solar system as going out to the Oort Cloud, where the comets that swing by our sun on long timescales originate. That area is where the gravity of other stars begins to dominate that of the sun. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it. Informally, of course, “solar system” typically means the planetary neighborhood around our sun. Because of this ambiguity, the Voyager team has lately favored talking about interstellar space, which is specifically the space between each star’s realm of plasma influence.

“What we can say is Voyager 1 is bathed in matter from other stars,” Stone said. “What we can’t say is what exact discoveries await Voyager’s continued journey. No one was able to predict all of the details that Voyager 1 has seen. So we expect more surprises.”

How do we know when Voyager reaches interstellar space?

Hier zwei weiterführende Dokus vom genialen SpaceRip Channel auf YouTube. Einmal ein kurzes Video-Special zur Nachricht und dann eine generelle Doku über Voyager, ihre Mission und den ganzen geilen Kram. Spaaaaace!

Cosmic Journeys examines the great promise of the Voyager mission and where it will lead us in our grand ambition to move out beyond our home planet. The two Voyager spacecraft are part of an ancient quest to push beyond our boundaries… to see what lies beyond the horizon. Now tens of billions of kilometers from Earth, two spacecraft are streaking out into the void. What will we learn about the Galaxy, the Universe, and ourselves from Voyager’s epic Journey to the stars?