# Voyager approaches boundary of the Solar System



## Incognito (Nov 10, 2003)

I'm a great fan of the Voyager project - I personally consider it to be the leading modern wonder of scientific and technical development by humanity. 

And now, still working after nearly 30 years, the Voyagers are closing on the boundary of the Solar System itself - where the Sun's influence fades and interstellar space itself is encountered. Truly exciting stuff - even overtaken the Pioneers.

Here's something from the New Scientist site:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994354

excerpt:



> *Voyager says goodbye to Solar System*
> 
> The most distant man-made object - the Voyager 1 spacecraft - is finally leaving the Solar System. Astronomers think the probe has reached a boundary where the Sun's influence starts to wane.
> 
> ...


And from the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3245677.stm

excerpt:



> *Scientists say the Voyager 1 spacecraft is near the outer limit of the Solar System, 26 years after its US launch. *
> 
> 
> The boundary is a region called "termination shock" where particles from the Sun begin to slow down and clash with atomic matter from deep space.
> ...


 
And love the graphic at the BBC page:


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## littlemissattitude (Nov 10, 2003)

I just love the idea of those craft out there, heading out for wherever they end up.  Each of them is so little, compared to the huge expanse of space.  But they are _there_, our first material representatives to the larger universe (not the first overall - there are all those radio and tv broadcasts that have been streaming out for years and years now.  I just love the idea of some alien civilization discovering "I Love Lucy"
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




).  It's so cold out there, and so quiet, but those two little parts of us, all of us, carry on into the void, full of purpose and full of the promise of perhaps someday being found by something intelligent enough to know that what they have stumbled on comes from another place, another time, confirmation that we have been here and have thought about them, out there.


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## Incognito (Nov 11, 2003)

Same here - I just find the whole Voyager concept so mind blowing. 

The way they have single-handedly changed our perception of the Solar System - not least its planets and moons - is just staggering. Perhaps they can even teach us something about interstellar space itself. The thought of that - of human-made objects entering the gulf between stars - I find simply staggering.  Humanity makes its tentative mark on the galaxy.


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## Fijimand (Nov 18, 2003)

Now that it has reached out this far maybe it will answer questions that astronomers have had, about comets and why the course change happens, or why pluto's orbit is so strange or why the galaxy goes from rocky planets to gasous to rock material again


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 22, 2003)

Absolutely - I hope it begins to answer quite a lot of questions about it all. Why break good habits?


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