Academia, Science

To Boldly Go Where No Machine Has Gone Before: Voyager Set To Become First Man-Made Object To Leave Our Solar System

This is very cool. Voyager 1 is about to become the first manmade object to leave our Solar System and enter the Milky Way after more than three decades in space. I remember when it was launched in 1977. It has been moving at 11 miles per second through space. We also learned some interesting stuff about Vesta in the asteroid belt this week.

Now this is an example of a good governmental investment. Voyager I (Voyager II is not far behind) has already confirmed that “stagnation region in the outermost layer” around our solar system and has served as a type of “wind sock” — showing a low flow of energetic charged particles or space wind in this area. You may recall that it has a gold-coated copper phonograph record created by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan with sounds and greetings from Earth. It has enough power and fuel to operate until at least 2020.

Another cool discovery was made this week about Vesta, the largest object in the asteroid belt. It turns out that the 330-mile wide asteroid is not really an asteroid after all. Dawn has been orbiting Vesta and found that it is more like a planet with an inner core, most likely made of iron, and a mix of minerals on its surface. If you are looking for real estate, however, this is a rather beat up fixer-upper. Vesta has remarkably survived massive hits from asteroids, including one “290-mile diameter impact crater that left basin walls three times higher than Mount Everest.”

It is my sincere hope that the record on Voyager contains the following and will be activated when crossing the border into the Milky Way:

Live long and prosper, Voyager.

Source: Discovery and Telegraph

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21 thoughts on “To Boldly Go Where No Machine Has Gone Before: Voyager Set To Become First Man-Made Object To Leave Our Solar System”

  1. “and planets that can support our types of species are very rare.”

    “We do not actually know enough to make this statement. With containment, there are many water worlds here in our own system that would allow us to live there…”

    Ahh, there is a very great difference between a ‘rock we can build an environmental chamber on’ & a planet that will support our life.. as far as we are able to ‘reach’, planets that can support our types of species are very rare, as in just this one.

    IMHO, it might be wise to _not_ destroy the parts that support our life.. which, considering it is a delicate balance of many parts, would be ‘all of it’..

    enjoy

  3. “You may recall that it has a gold-coated copper phonograph record created by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan with sounds and greetings from Earth.”

    I agree that this is very cool to someone like myself who has read science fiction since the age of eight. I’ve also read everything Carl Sagan wrote for a popular audience and admired him. However, the gold record pointing out our location was to me a mistake. I wouldn’t trust humanity if they found such a record, why should I trust an unknown alien species?

  5. @Gene – A man’s got to know his limitations. My fortes lie elsewhere.

    Anyone up for a discussion of Saturday morning cartoons from the late 50’s to mid 60s?

    @anon – and on another subject – most frequent line spoken on Star Trek: “Damn it Jim, this man’s dead!”

  6. junctionshamus,

    You may be thinking of two of the original series second season episodes. “The Omega Glory” – in which the Enterprise encounters a planet where the Yangs are at war with the Kohms and ends with Kirk admonishing the Yangs for forgetting the way of their “ancient text” which is a slightly distorted version of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution – and “The Changeling” – in which a Voyager like probe named Nomad has melded with an alien probe and is returning to Earth to “destroy the imperfection of biological life” (many think this episode is a blatant ripoff of legendary sci-fi author Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker series – which are truly horrifying and illustrate why some people like Stephen Hawking and David Brin think that attempting to contact technological alien life is a really bad idea).

    Thanks for letting me get my geek on. 😀

  8. I could have sworn that in the original series, they come across an old Voyager satellite – I thought it was the same one with the discovery of the American flag and copy of Declaration of Independence.

    Famous last words heard by most characters on Star Trek: “Ensign, you’ll come with me…”

  9. Blouse, OS,

    I assure you, drive to Flagstaff, or most of Arizona, and Pluto still lives on as the 9th planet even though it is much smaller than Uranus.

    (You may have to put up with a few dumb and offensive laws and possibly unconstitutional laws.)

    And Illinois as well:

    “RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois’ night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13, 2009 be declared “Pluto Day” in the State of Illinois in honor of the date its discovery was announced in 1930.”

  10. junctionshamus,

    You’re thinking of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and yes some of us geeks people remember it.

  12. “and planets that can support our types of species are very rare.”

    We do not actually know enough to make this statement. With containment, there are many water worlds here in our own system that would allow us to live there. That it may not have blue sky is rather irrelevant.

    As for “cleaning up our act,” not likely. Life is disgusting, dirty, and greasy. We leave filth behind; this is our nature and it is not going to change before we go to deep space. But I daresay it won’t matter. When humans become themselves E.T. they will look much more like Voyager, given the distances and hazards. Flesh and deep space to not mix. Time and radiation are non-trivial problems.

    Voyager remains the pinnacle of exploration. Average the mission cost out since they were launched, and the bang for the buck is astronomical.

  13. I am with Blouise. I am still ticked off about Pluto. As far as I am concerned, it is still the ninth planet.

  16. Frankly 1, December 8, 2011 at 7:44 am

    Dredd – and that is why the search of alien life is futile. Even if we do find the needle in a haystack real communication will be impossible. The best we could hope for is that they have developed technology to exploit worm holes and would be willing to stop by here for a chat. But why would they do that?
    ======================
    The only reason they might contact us is to tell us not to venture out there until we clean up our act. As it is, we are planet destroyers, and planets that can support our types of species are very rare.

  17. Dredd – and that is why the search of alien life is futile. Even if we do find the needle in a haystack real communication will be impossible. The best we could hope for is that they have developed technology to exploit worm holes and would be willing to stop by here for a chat. But why would they do that?

  18. The two Voyager craft travel at about 38,000 miles an hour.

    At that rate it would take a while to reach Gliese 581 (20.5 light-years from Earth), which is half the distance to GJ-1214b.

    It would take Voyager about 353,000 years to get to Gliese 581, one way.

  19. Shhh… Don’t tell Cheney… We might have to declare it a hostile planet and have Bush declare war….

  20. And yet we have congressional debates about the value of the JWT and scientific research. The persistence of human solipsism and willful ignorance is truly baffling. Here’s to hoping we don’t see a superconducting super collider redux in JWT, especially in light of the fact that the LHC is on the brink of seeing concrete evidence for the Higgs. One wonders where we would be now in particle physics had the SSC moved forward back in the 90s…

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