brellis
Dec 14 2010, 03:29 AM
From the 12/14
Space Daily article (wait - that's tomorrow! hehe)
QUOTE
Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.
Questions for more studied UMSFers: The space daily article has an image that implies our sun's heliosheath has a huge tail. Is that tail due to the sun's motion around the galactic center? Is Voyager 1 at the 'front' edge? Is Voyager 2 heading down the tail side?
ZLD
Dec 14 2010, 04:28 AM
g4ayu
Dec 14 2010, 12:14 PM
Just noticed that it's the top read news story on the BBC News website.
Click to view attachment
rogelio
Apr 14 2011, 12:13 PM
Nice article about Edward Stone in today's LA Times:
"Voyager 1 on the edge, and so is he"
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-04...0,4527527.story
jasedm
Apr 14 2011, 04:43 PM
Thanks Rogelio - nice article
Ed has quite some CV over the last four decades!!
I sincerely hope he's around to see V1 coast into interstellar space proper.
Jase
mchan
Jun 10 2011, 02:11 AM
MarcF
Jun 16 2011, 08:38 AM
Some good news from outer space :
"Voyager 1 could cross over into the frontier of interstellar space at any time and much earlier than previously thought"
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/recalculating_space.htmlLinks to the journal Nature :
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/ful...s.2011.370.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/...nature10115.pdfBest regards,
Marc.
jgoldader
Jul 26 2011, 04:52 AM
Hi all,
I'm working on an article on the Voyagers, and have noticed that the last weekly status updates on the Voyager website were published in April. Does anybody know if they're normally sent up in batches?
Thanks
Jeff
remcook
Jul 26 2011, 07:21 AM
Yes, last time I checked, they get put on the website in large batches.
Paolo
Dec 2 2011, 06:07 AM
remcook
Dec 2 2011, 08:37 AM
Great, still doing good science!
Curious to know if the measurements form anything that could be described as an image. Does the full article say -- anyone have Science access? (I can't tell from the free
online supplement.)
Measurements are said to be taken with the ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS).
This page quotes FOV as 0.10° × 0.87°, so maximum spatial resolution would be pretty coarse. From hints in the supplement, I guess the data are much coarser.
This page (date unknown) says: "data is being collected from the Ultraviolet Spectrometer Subsystem (UVS). While there are no science investigation teams associated with this instrument, the captured data is made available to interested scientists." If this was true at the time the relevant measurements were taken, I guess they might not have been chosen with this investigation in mind?
New Scientist says the instruments have since been turned off (corroborated by
this page: V1 1998, V2 2002).
stevesliva
Dec 3 2011, 02:49 AM
http://vega.lpl.arizona.edu/voyager_uvs/instrument.htmlIt's pulse counting on the 128 channels that form the spectrum.
From the supplement:
QUOTE
For our specific purpose of a high precision and bias-free Ly determination we have devised a new reduction and
analysis pipeline, improved from the technique used earlier (33). The Voyager UVS (Ultra-Violet Spectrometer)
has a field of view of 0.1x0.87 defined by a mechanical grill collimator. Light that passes through the collimator
reaches a concave grating, which disperses and focusses the light onto the microchannel plate (MCP) detector. A
single photo-electron created at the input of the MCP generates a pulse of many electrons at the output, and this
charge is collected on a linear array of 128 elongated anodes (channels) that correspond to the 540 to 1700 Å range.
One anode covers 9.26 Å. Charges on the anodes are periodically sampled and subjected to threshold detection;
detected events are summed into 128 corresponding memory locations to form a spectrum.
So no, not really a picture. And that is coupled with two Azimuth directions.
Paolo
Dec 3 2011, 08:54 AM
QUOTE (JTN @ Dec 3 2011, 02:30 AM)
Curious to know if the measurements form anything that could be described as an image. Does the full article say -- anyone have Science access? (I can't tell from the free
online supplement.)
there is an image in the paper (fig. 2, for those having access) showing "Scan data point directions superimposed on" a hydrogen-alpha map of the sky. Scan data points are colorized to indicate "the intensity of the continuum, with red indicating its absence and blue the most intense".
no real image, actually...
as for the date scans were taken, Voyager 1 operated between 1993 and mid-2003 and V2 between 1993 and mid-1998.
MarcF
Dec 13 2011, 10:43 AM
It's getting really exiting !! Not long to wait now before historical entry into the interstellar medium !!
NASA'S VOYAGER HITS NEW REGION AT SOLAR SYSTEM EDGE
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new_region.htmlBest regards,
Marc.
hendric
Dec 13 2011, 07:03 PM
QUOTE (MarcF @ Dec 13 2011, 04:43 AM)
It's getting really exiting
Best UMSF Freudian slip ever.
MarcF
Dec 13 2011, 08:37 PM
Hehehe ! Oups !! This loss of C was really not deliberate !!
volcanopele
Dec 13 2011, 09:59 PM
I wouldn't call that a Freudian slip, but that certainly goes on the list of best puns (albeit unintentional) of the year.
ups
Dec 17 2011, 07:14 PM
It's amazing that the science coming from the Voyagers hasn't really egressed in the 30+ years they've been in service.
MarcF
Jun 20 2012, 07:03 PM
dilo
Jun 21 2012, 04:58 AM
QUOTE (MarcF @ Jun 20 2012, 08:03 PM)
Ever closer...
I think they refers, in particular, to high energy proton flux:
Click to view attachmentextracted from here:
Click to view attachment
MarcF
Aug 7 2012, 03:49 PM
And more signs that "we" are almost in the interstellar medium...
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/signs_changing_fast.htmlBest regards,
Marc.
dilo
Sep 1 2012, 07:04 AM
At the end of August we had another two drops of low-energy protons, even deeper than one month ago!
http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/VOYAGER/images/vg...d_avg_09_on.pdf
Astro0
Sep 5 2012, 07:13 AM
Voyager 1 marks 35 years since launch and joining Voyager 2 on the Grand Tour of the Solar System.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/voyager_35.htmlA new banner to mark the milestone
Sail on lil' Voyagers! Sail on!
RoverDriver
Sep 5 2012, 07:33 AM
I think that Voyagers are the coolest mission. Whenever I go to the Von Karman here at JPL where they have a replica I'm always amazed by their size.
Paolo
Paolo
Sep 5 2012, 06:16 PM
jasedm
Sep 5 2012, 06:42 PM
QUOTE (RoverDriver @ Sep 5 2012, 08:33 AM)
I think that Voyagers are the coolest mission.
Paolo
Seconded.
dilo
Sep 14 2012, 01:13 PM
I think this combined plot speaks by itself:
Click to view attachmentV1 is definitively inside a totally new region...
Source:
http://voyager.gsfc.nasa.gov/heliopause/he...recenthist.html
TheAnt
Sep 30 2012, 06:07 PM
It really looks like it.
That particle/proton rate have stayed low for 2 more weeks, whereas the galactic cosmic rays continue to climb slowly.
And turning of the spacecraft to look for any possible sideway movement did show that the particles were not moving sideways either.
(Also described in the summary linked by Paolo.)
Isn't that exactly the conditions to expect at the boundary of the heliopause?
Now data from IBEX suggest there might be no bow shock zone at all. So all will depend on how deep this area might be, after that Voyager 1 might very well be in true Interstellar space.
Related story
'The little motor that could'
dilo
Sep 30 2012, 06:49 PM
Thanks for the link, TheAnt!
This recall me to update the plot:
Click to view attachmentAfter two more weeks, initial impression became a robust trend!
EdTruthan
Nov 30 2012, 07:27 PM
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Monday, Dec. 3, to discuss the latest findings and travels of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.
MORE HERE
Floyd
Nov 30 2012, 10:01 PM
Dilo
Are your graph labels are correct >70 and >0.5 not >70 and <0.5??
Hungry4info
Nov 30 2012, 10:43 PM
Floyd
Dec 1 2012, 03:33 AM
What am I missing. >70 is also >0.5, so how can >70 be going up the last month and >0.5 be going down????? Never mind--two different detectors measuring different types of particles, not one detector measuring two energy ranges.
djellison
Dec 1 2012, 10:17 AM
However - the value of >70 is small compared to >0.5
It's risen from only 2 to 2.3
Whereas the >0.5 has dropped from 25 to about 2.3
i.e. - the amount of particles between 0.5 and 70 has dropped to essentially zero.
dilo
Dec 1 2012, 04:27 PM
QUOTE (Floyd @ Nov 30 2012, 11:01 PM)
Dilo
Are your graph labels are correct >70 and >0.5 not >70 and <0.5??
Labels were correct (copied from original) but their postions on vertical axes were wrong! This is the correct (and updated) 1-year trend:
Click to view attachmentSorry for mistake!
Explorer1
Dec 3 2012, 07:03 PM
Starting here:
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2Nothing at the usual NASA link....
Tesheiner
Dec 3 2012, 07:31 PM
News release:
NASA Voyager 1 Encounters New Region in Deep Space.
QUOTE
December 03, 2012
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space.
...
0101Morpheus
Dec 6 2012, 08:07 PM
So much for there being a clear cutoff point
djellison
Dec 7 2012, 02:26 AM
Explorer1
Dec 7 2012, 06:49 AM
I think this time they're very sure this is the last section before true interstellar space (in terms of particles, not gravity). It was described as the 'off-ramp' to the stars in the recent teleconference. And the team will know it when they see it.
Once Voyager 2 crosses into this same area, we might even be able to guesstimate the large-scale shape of this 'highway'.
djellison
Dec 7 2012, 12:07 PM
There will be no sharp cut off of gravity - why do you mention that?
0101Morpheus
Dec 7 2012, 05:27 PM
What I meant is that the scientists told us there was a clear boundary between the heliosphere and the outside. First they said there was a blow shock. Now we know the Sun doesn't have one. Then they said that the boundary would be when the solar wind stopped and there would be a sharp increase in cosmic rays. And thats what we've seen. But now they say were still inside the heliosphere because of the magnetic orientation. This new "in-between" area.
The heliosphere is the edge of the suns magnetic field. I was led to think there would be a sharp boundary. Now it seems to depend of interpretation. Is the edge where the influx of cosmic rays begins, or is it when the sun's magnetic field gives way to the galactic magnetic field? Thats all.
Explorer1
Dec 7 2012, 05:28 PM
I was replying to 0101Morpheus about whether there's a clear transition into interstellar space which the heliopause crossing will be. Yet it really depends on our definitions of solar system; the sun's gravitational influence will be felt much farther, tens of thousands of AU, while the high energy particle environment can and does change rapidly, as this recent discovery shows. The Oort cloud would be 'outside' our solar system by the latter particle definition, but clearly still gravitationally bound to the Sun.
0101Morpheus
Dec 7 2012, 05:32 PM
Seems we got our replies mixed up.
Yes I know the sun's gravity doesn't stop. You can keep going for a light year and still be inside its hills sphere.
TheAnt
Dec 24 2012, 09:17 PM
In the data for Voyager 2 we got a dip for the particle flux now in the first week of December then it had a small peak, to fold back down in about the same pace in the last days.
This might be similar as what we did see for V1 in August.
However this is one "stay tuned" post of mine for those interested, a heads up that also V2 might get close to the boundary but that it's not quite there yet.
Voyager 2 data page
djellison
Dec 24 2012, 09:34 PM
V2 is clearly in a very different environment to V1. V2 has had a very gradual decline over the past year to about 50% of initial levels. V1 was almost static at a fixed level until a very sudden and rapid decline by an order of magnitude in literally a day that bounced back and forth a little then dropped for good. Fascinating.
Explorer1
Dec 25 2012, 12:34 AM
Until New Horizons gets out there, these two are the only data points we have on what is certain to be complex large scale structures. Glad both are still functioning.
stevesliva
Dec 25 2012, 02:40 AM
QUOTE (Explorer1 @ Dec 24 2012, 07:34 PM)
Until New Horizons gets out there, these two are the only data points we have on what is certain to be complex large scale structures. Glad both are still functioning.
No magnetometer on NH, though. Going to be a very long time until another magnetometer heads out there. (Comments about exactly how far NH will get aside.)
TheAnt
Jan 1 2013, 10:50 AM
QUOTE (djellison @ Dec 24 2012, 10:34 PM)
V2 is clearly in a very different environment to V1.
My little personal hypothesis is that it is the same environment, the graph certainly dropped like a rock for V1 - which made me pay attention that something had happened. V1 are heading in a direction nearly bulls eye on the solar apex (the direction which the sun are travelling) - so the sphere might be somewhat flattened there and the border zone itself compressed.
But that V2 are entering it at a point nearly 90 degrees from the solar apex and so the process will take a longer time.
Since my post the particle count have started to drop down again - but as said, my post were merely a heads-up I am fully aware from my own work not to build intricate theories on just a hump in a graph. =)
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