Is Voyager 1 in Interstellar Space? The Debate Continues
NASA’s Voyager 1 Explores Final Frontier of Our ‘Solar Bubble’, NASA JPL
“Data from Voyager 1, now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.”
Related (Previous):
– Voyager 1 Has Left Our Solar System
– Has Voyager 1 Left The Solar System?
Another example of how long it takes to get someplace with chemical propulsion. Then there is a question just where does interstellar space begin? Like Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyagers built by many no longer alive, and from parts and systems of companies that no longer exist.
Oort cloud
Money very well spent…and a tremendous achievement.
I posted this opinion over on NASASpaceflight.com:
It’s probably a human instinctive assumption to visualise the heliopause is a dimensionless boundary line between two regions of space. Instead, I choose to see it as a distinct region of space in its own right with steadily changing conditions as you transition from inside the heliosphere into interstellar space. If my interpretation is correct, then Voyager 1 is inside the heliopause and has been for some time.
In the old days, interstellar space meant anywhere beyond the planets.
The problem is that objects physically associated to the Sun by gravity go out quite a way. I believe the current guess for the outermost Oort Cloud orbits is something in the range of a light year at the moment.