Please Make Up Your Mind About Where Vger Is
AGU: Voyager 1 has left the solar system, sudden changes in cosmic rays indicate
“In the GRL article, the authors state: “It appears that [Voyager 1] has exited the main solar modulation region, revealing [hydrogen] and [helium] spectra characteristic of those to be expected in the local interstellar medium.” However, Webber notes, scientists are continuing to debate whether Voyager 1 has reached interstellar space or entered a separate, undefined region beyond the solar system.”
NASA Voyager Status Update on Voyager 1 Location
“It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space.”
V’ger was Voyager 6, though. Not Voyager 1. 😉
Aliens tampered with the name plate.
No, not aliens! It was just Carl and the rest of the JPL guys’ way of playing with any future aliens’ heads. 😉
Is that a reference to SEAL Team VI?
I suppose that the big problem is that no-one knows definitively what will be detected if the probe really has exited the solar system. No doubt it will take several years of debating over the evidence (and, presumably, more data) before the debate is finally settled. Right now, all there are is conflicting opinions on what the evidence shows. Time will show who is right.
FWIW, I think NASA is right not to rush an announcement. They’ve been burnt a few times (especially on results from Mars) so they’ll be a lot more careful this time.
“He calls this transition boundary the “heliocliff.”“
I am not well versed in heliophysics, but it seems to me that there are a couple of things that aren’t mentioned in either article.
First, the heliocliff is perhaps not a “cliff” at all, but rather a very broad boundary or region between the heliosphere and interstellar space that extends for a large, currently unknown distance, with characteristics not yet quantified. If that’s the case, then Voyager has left the heliosphere, and therefore, by current definitions, has left the solar system, but is not yet in interstellar space.
Second, previously obtained Voyager data suggested that the heliosphere is not a fixed size ending at a fixed distance from the Sun, but rather it fluctuates in size by a very large amount. So, it’s reasonable to assume that Voyager is in the vicinity of two moving borders, (the end of the heliosphere; and the end of the region between the heliosphere and interstellar space (the heliocliff region)). It is quite possible then for Voyager to be in the heliocliff region one day and back in the heliospehere again the next day, because the border between them has moved further from the Sun. Since the border can move in either direction (and is not a perfect sphere) it is possible for Voyager to “enter” the heliocliff region many times, without changing its trajectory at all. The same situation would hold in crossing from the heiocliff region into interstellar space. Voyager could do it many times, depending on the changing size of the heliocliff region and how the two borders change with time.
As a general statement, I don’t think it’s really valid to think of any of the “border” regions in heliophysics as cliff-like; they are better thought of as regions of fluctuating size.
I think you’re right in that the difficulty is in determining when they’ve truly passed a large, ill defined boundary. Given the turbulence that has been seen in the magnetic field out there, I’m surprised anyone is in a rush to say that Voyager 1 has left the solar system. I think there will continue to be questions at least until Voyager 2 also leaves the system and the data sets from the two probes can be compared and correlated. Even then, I’m sure the solar system boundary will still be pretty ill defined.
Agree with your “Second” paragraph. Did you see the line graph of the .. whatever it was particle energy? From that it has clearly begun oscillating between low energy (heliosphere solar particles) and high energy (interstellar particles). So the heliopause is kind of fluctuating in a way that puts Voyager inside then outside the heliosphere over and over.. and this started last year I think. So it is a clear boundary, or cliff (though how many particles can there really be out there compared to here on Earth, kind of an anticlimactic cliff, and yeah it’s moving too).
I imagine it’s like a sphere of juice or water that an astronaut squirted out of a container as he/she was eating in space. It kind of blobs around as it floats there.
I would like to propose that we forthwith cancel the SLS project and divert the funds into a series of planetary probes to examine solar locations more receptive to complex chemical interactions, such as the moons of Saturn and Jupiter as well as atmospheric probes to the outer planets of Uranus, Saturn and Neptune as well as a series of fast solar system rockets based on Robert Winglee’s Mini-Magnetic Plasma Propulsion systems to explore the helio-pause and helio-cliff regions as well as the near solar environment of the Oort Cloud with instrument packages tailored to expand on and clarify the conditions of interstellar space based on the data and science that our Voyager probes have so far given us. I suggest that the amount of science that we might gather from such an endeavor would more immediately avail us over the somewhat dubious missions that SLS might facilitate. And provide more public interest as we return pictures and data of these vistas then anything currently being contemplated.
Indeed I suppose that with this post do propose it, but as we at this site know, it ain’t gonna happen in the current use NASA as a pork barrel climate. The Voyager mission achievements seem far more exciting to me then the SLS pork barrel does and the ability to tell friends and family that we may have well reached interstellar space more interesting than anything else I might tell them of right at the moment.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to use the potentials of newer propulsion tech to get a follow up probe out to those distances slightly faster to follow up with a larger, better equipped science package to measure more items, with greater precision in broader spectral bands? Now that’s a real 21st century kind of goal.
Larry
Perhaps we should define the limits of the Solar System somewhere outside the Oort cloud, that way we would pospone this matter a few millenia 🙂
Sound like someone needs to read the fable “The boy who cried “Interstellar Medium'”.
The only way I’m going to know this baby is out of the solar system is if/when Ed Stone stands up to the podium and says so.
So does that mean that the Oort Cloud and part of the Trans-Neptunian Objects are not in the Solar System? I think a lot of planetary scientist would disagree with that notion 🙂
It’s weird but we are seeing that, depending on the criteria you use, there are different sizes and boundaries for the solar system.
The furthest objects gravitationally bound by the sun are the Oort Cloud objects, which could be up to two light years out, according to some theories. If this current theory about the edge of the heliosheath is borne out, we see a different boundary, which is the sun’s electromagnetic influence. The two, as you point out, are very different.
“The furthest objects gravitationally bound by the sun are the Oort Cloud objects“
… as far as we know. I doubt there’s anything else out there bound to the sun/solar system, gravitationally or otherwise, but we don’t know for sure at this time. For example, it’s not yet clear how dark matter and dark energy “interact” with the sun/solar system, or even if they directly do.
no, heliosphere
Who cares where Voyager is now, as we know it is coming back…. as the Borg!
The ultimate case of working in a Cube-ical.
“V’ger must find the Creator. The Creator is the one true being. V’ger must find the Creator to complete my mission. The Carbon units are not true life forms, V’ger must eliminate the Carbon life forms”. Capt. Kirk “Bones; who OR whhhaat is the Creeeaator”? Bones “Damnit Jim! I’m just a simple country doctor, NOT the POPE! How in blazes am I supposed to know who the Creator is”? V’ger is with the creator.