[extropy-chat] Voyager 1 (possibly) at the boundary of the Solar System

[Amara Graps]

I said:

>
>There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached
>the Heliopause.
>
>If this isn't  a reason for a massive party/celebration
>of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is....
>
>
>
>http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2003/031105.htm
>


The following is a link to some background information
regarding the heliosphere, in case you want to know more.


http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5527/55?ck=nck

Science
Volume 293, Number 5527, Issue of 6 Jul 2001, pp. 55-56.

News from the Edge of Interstellar Space

Edward C. Stone

Auroral activity and magnetic storms that occasionally disrupt
electric power grids are caused by the supersonic solar wind [HN1]
that sweeps past Earth as it blows radially away from the Sun. This
wind creates the heliosphere [HN2], a bubble of magnetized plasma
that surrounds the Sun and includes the orbits of all known planets.
Two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2 [HN3], are approaching the edge of
the heliosphere [HN4]--the heliopause--where the radially decreasing
pressure of the expanding solar wind balances the inward pressure of
the local interstellar medium [HN5]. En route, the spacecraft are
sending back important information about the far reaches of the
solar system.

The size of the heliosphere varies as the solar wind pressure
changes with the 11-year solar cycle [HN6], with maximum size at the
time of minimum solar activity (1). Currently, the heliosphere is
shrinking because solar activity is near its maximum. Furthermore,
it is distorted into a cometlike shape by the motion of the
interstellar medium relative to the Sun. A long tail extends in the
downwind direction. The two Voyager spacecraft are headed in the
opposite, upwind direction, where the heliopause is closest to the
Sun (see the first figure).

(see the article for the rest)
-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"The real malady is fear of life, not of death."   -- Naguib Mahfouz