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ITHACA, N.Y. - Voyager 1 - one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space - still works and zooms toward infinity.
The craft has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause - the solar system s border with interstellar space - into the interstellar medium. Now, its instruments have detected the constant drone of interstellar gas (plasma waves), according to Cornell University-led research published in
Nature Astronomy.
Examining data slowly sent back from more than 14 billion miles away, Stella Koch Ocker, a Cornell doctoral student in astronomy, has uncovered the emission. It s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth, Ocker said. We re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.
Voyager 1 Is Detecting a Hum of Plasma Waves in The Void of Interstellar Space
10 MAY 2021
Voyager 1, having spent over 43 years zooming away from Earth since its 1977 launch, is now a very long way away indeed.
Its distance from the Sun is over 150 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. It takes over 21 hours for transmissions traveling at light speed to arrive at Earth. It officially passed the heliopause - the boundary at which pressure from the solar wind is no longer sufficient to push into the wind from interstellar space - in 2012.
Voyager 1 has left the Solar System - and it s finding that the void of space is not quite so void-like, after all.
In the abyssal depths of interstellar space, a NASA probe launched from the U.S. in 1977 is still passively exploring the galaxy, returning all data to its makers, here on Earth. Called Voyager 1, the craft is far beyond the heliopause an invisible shield that marks our solar system s border with the rest of the galaxy.
Out there, in the interstellar medium, Voyager 1 s instruments have detected the haunting hum of interstellar gas plasma waves moving through a region of space far beyond the human imagination, according to a new study published in the journal
Voyager 1 can help scientists study the composition of interstellar space
May 10, 2021 by archyde
A NASA spacecraft picks up a strange “hum” outside our solar system.
Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object ever built, as one of a pair of spacecraft launched toward the edge of the Solar System 44 years ago. His journey has taken him right to the edge and beyond – and he now cuts through the “interstellar medium” beyond the influence of our Sun.
Devices on board the spacecraft trying to analyze this interstellar medium have heard the sound of a stationary drone, which appears to be the noise of the universe outside our region.
The drone appears to emit interstellar gases or plasma waves in the largely empty interstellar space.