After 33 years, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft are still actively working – gathering information, communicating with Earth, (and Tweeting!), and they are about to go where no space probe has gone before: into interstellar space. Because of the unfamiliar nature of the heliosphere, and especially its outermost layer, the heliosheath, it is not known exactly when the Voyagers will actually reach the “great beyond.”
“The heliosheath is 3 to 4 billion miles (4.8 to 6 billion km) in thickness,” said Voyager Project Scientist, Ed Stone. “That means we’ll be out within five years or so.” The V’ger’s Plutonium 238 heat source will keep the critical subsystems running through at least 2020, but after that, Stone says, “Voyager will become our silent ambassador to the stars.”
This video features highlights of the Voyager journeys to the outer planets and the discoveries they have made, and shows where they are now and where they are headed.
According to the United Nations, the world produces about 430 million metric tons (267 U.S.…
As we saw with JWST, it's difficult and expensive to launch large telescope apertures, relying…
Voyager 1 was launched waaaaaay back in 1977. I would have been 4 years old…
The spectra of distant galaxies shows that dying sun-like stars, not supernovae, enrich galaxies the…
Neutron stars are extraordinarily dense objects, the densest in the Universe. They pack a lot…
Think of the Moon and most people will imagine a barren world pockmarked with craters.…