News: Voyager probes celebrate 30 years.
- From: Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:33:28 GMT
Voyager probes celebrate 30 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6979696.stm
The US space agency's (Nasa) venerable Voyager mission is celebrating
its 30th anniversary.
Its two probes were launched within weeks of each other in 1977 to
make a detailed study of the outer planets.
The probes were then sent on trajectories that will eventually take
them out of the Solar System and into interstellar space.
Three decades on, they continue to return data from distances more
than three times farther away than Pluto.
Currently, Voyager 1 is farthest away. Launched on 5 September 1977,
it is about 15.5 billion km (9.7 billion miles) from the Sun.
Voyager 2, which was lofted on 20 August 1977, is about 12.5 billion
km (7.8 billion miles) away from the Sun.
They are travelling in the general direction of the centre of our
galaxy. Mission managers believe the probes' power packs should
maintain their working systems until at least 2020.
Although there are no planets in their vicinity to investigate, they
are helping scientists understand the extent of the heliosphere, the
huge "bubble" within which the Sun dominates its region of space.
It contains electrically charged particles that have been blown off
the Sun at high speed and which are now pressing up against matter
from other stars.
'Much to learn'
At some point in the next few years, the Voyagers will cross the
"official" edge of the Solar System - the heliopause. Past here, the
probes would be in interstellar space and, by that stage, probably
some 40 years on from their launches.
"The Voyager mission has opened up our Solar System in a way not
possible before the Space Age," said Edward Stone, the Voyager project
scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
California.
"It revealed our neighbours in the outer Solar System and showed us
how much there is to learn and how diverse the bodies are that share
the Solar System with our own planet Earth."
Both Voyagers carry gold-plated copper discs containing sounds and
images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
Music on the discs includes Bach and Chuck Berry.
--
Bob.
.
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