Shocking Encounter for Voyager 1

NASA Drawing: A schematic diagram of the the solar blast wave hitting the edge of the heliosphere. Click to listen to sample radio sounds generated by the collision.
Voyager 1, which left Earth in the late 1970s, is currently about 14.5 billion kilometres from the Sun. The spacecraft is still functioning and reports back to the Earth once a day. The trip to the outer solar system has been quite uneventful, but things are soon to get a little interesting. In the fall of last year, the Sun ejected about a billion tons of gas during a solar storm in a coronal mass ejection (CME). That CME left the Sun traveling at around 2000 km/s, and will soon reach Voyager, having slowed down to about 600 km/s already. As well, Voyager 1 is getting close to the heliosphere, the perimeter of the Sun's magnetosphere -- when the CME hits the heliosphere, it will stretch it out distances as great as 600 million km and the impact will emit radio waves. The heliosphere will stretch and rebound -- for months it will oscillate back and forth, passing over Voyager 1. Suddenly, Voyager 1 is in the news again. The little spacecraft that could.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blogs of Note

Who Would Jesus Hate? -- described as providing "anecdotal evidence of how religion is on the wrong side of every social issue." Fugetaboutit! -- hilarious site from a "48-year-old shrinking Italian comedian ." Take the tagline for instance: "I saw the face of Jesus in my lasagna ... briefly."
Read more

Civil disobedience is called for

Image
In an act of desperation, Tim DeCristopher chose civil disobedience to disrupt the bidding process that saw 149,000 acres of public land leased off to oil companies in Utah. The lease of the land to oil companies, to allow drilling, has been contested by many who wish to preserve the pristine land, located near Arches National Park, the White River, the greater Desolation Canyon region, Labyrinth Canyon, the benches east of Canyonlands National Park, Nine Mile Canyon, the Book Cliffs and the Deep Creek Mountains. It is one of the final sell-off by the dying Bush administration. DeCristopher showed at the auction, registered as a bidder, and started bidding -- and winning -- with no intention of purchasing or paying for the auctions he won. Way to go dude! You're a hero!
Read more
GT Ripple Want to say goodbye to that ole boring desktop? Try GT Ripple. It adds nice soothing movement to your desktop. Once you've downloaded and installed the app, you will need to images to ripple. Go here: Visual Paradox Deviant Art
Read more