Voyager 2 sends back
insights on interstellar space
EarthSky,
by
Deborah Byrd
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
11/5/2019 8:10:51 AM
Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, or the edge of the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by our sun – in August 2012. Heading in a different direction, Voyager 2 crossed another part of the heliopause on today’s date a year ago, November 5, 2018. Thus Voyager 2 became only the second earthly spacecraft to cross into interstellar space, at a distance of some 11 billion miles (18 billion km) from Earth, well beyond the orbit of Pluto. Today, five new research papers in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy describe what scientists observed during and since Voyager 2’s historic crossing
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Safari Man 11/5/2019 8:57:59 AM (No. 227633)
I could use one of those Plutonium batteries in my iPhone.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Quigley 11/5/2019 9:35:26 AM (No. 227674)
I’m surprised the dims didn’t sabotage it- for practice if for no other reason.
2 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
jasonB 11/5/2019 9:50:33 AM (No. 227693)
I hope they went with the unlimited data and roaming plan.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
clayusmcret 11/5/2019 10:04:16 AM (No. 227717)
I'm just waiting to hear that something we did caused man-made interstellar warming.
6 people like this.
Now that is interesting stuff. Thanks for posting something worthwhile that isn't politics (a subject I am getting truly tired of in these times).
6 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 11/5/2019 11:23:12 AM (No. 227791)
Vee-ger. Impressive to be still getting useful data from these old probes so long after they were launched.
Voyager probes were launched when I was two years out of college, and I recently attended my 50th HS reunion. These probes are nearing a half a century of service. Awesome.
And no, you don't want one of those plutonium power units for your phone, the heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium is used to drive thermionic modules which create electricity with no moving parts. Sounds great but the one that power's Voyager weighs 84 lbs, and has more heat output than two hair driers, so would be hot, even if you were to haul around that amount of weight. But, that is for 160 watts, when new, so you'd need a whole lot less. But the shielding on this one is a lot less, since nobody is
ever around it.
The smallest terrestrial unit I know of weighs about 1200 lbs, and puts out 10 watts. Since a cell phone uses somewhere around 1 watt of power, even if it scaled down perfectly (not likely), a 1 watt version at 120 lbs (and hot) is pretty inconvenient, even if it didn't cost a million bucks or whatever.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
pensom2 11/5/2019 12:23:19 PM (No. 227858)
FTA: "You might know that the sun undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity."
Clink on the link in the article to this and you'll understand why we experience global warming, cooling, and climate change. Man isn't the cause of it--the sun is, with magnetic fields migrating and sun spots and sun storms exploding.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 11/5/2019 12:40:43 PM (No. 227872)
They should have put Aretha's Gold record on board if they really want aliens to know what's important on Earth.
1 person likes this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 11/5/2019 12:48:20 PM (No. 227878)
#7, AND the earth's axis precesses, too, like a child's toy spinnng top will stand up but the axis will describe a slow circle, the earth's axis does the same. This changes the effective solar angles and the seasons. And the orbit around the sun also changes.
https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/University_Physics/Book%3A_University_Physics_(OpenStax)/Map%3A_University_Physics_I_-_Mechanics%2C_Sound%2C_Oscillations%2C_and_Waves_(OpenStax)/11%3A__Angular_Momentum/11.4%3A_Precession_of_a_Gyroscope
So, we undergo ~100,000 years of Ice Age with everything from the north pole down to about the middle of the continental USA covered with a solid sheet of ice, up to a mile thick. And then, there are interglacial periods where the ice sheets melt out....nothing to do with those little people running around, just natural changes. We are now 10,000 years into an Interglacial Period.....which we do not really know the duration of. The "conventional wisdom" is that they last from 10,000 to 30,000 years. So, it could be getting really cold soon since it has been 10,000 years.
We had a -8F morning and a foot of new snow at our cabin in the southern mountains of Colorado last week.
Set records for October cold. And they keep calling for "man made global warming".....while it looks like natural cooling is more likely. That's a shame, warming won't kill many people and destroy so many crops as cooling.
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 11/5/2019 12:51:19 PM (No. 227880)
The unmanned space explorations are probably more productive. We get data for years on end without worrying about loss of life.
2 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 11/5/2019 12:52:13 PM (No. 227881)
Here is a nice video of a toy top spinning.
Note the precession, as the axis of spin slowly makes a circle. The Earth does the same.
1 person likes this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 11/5/2019 1:31:41 PM (No. 227918)
OOPS. Here is the top link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf-yBMnwHDE
0 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
GO3 11/5/2019 2:13:21 PM (No. 227960)
The precession is called the Milankovitch Cycle or close to it.
Also, can we expect V'ger to return in a couple of hundred years with a 22 AU cloud threatening to destroyer the earth unless it contacts the creator?
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 11/5/2019 3:30:01 PM (No. 228013)
Hope not #13, not a good way for reality to follow 'art'.
1 person likes this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 11/5/2019 4:36:18 PM (No. 228047)
I could sure use those plutonium batteries in my hearing aids. Truly amazing that a radio signal can transmit over a distance of 11 billion miles.
0 people like this.
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The year's delay for the reports is because it took so long to gather all the data.