Voyager 1 Nears End of Solar System
Posted in: space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
It’s been cruising space for 33 years, for a total of almost 11 billion miles, and now the Voyager 1 is close to hitting a major milestone.. NASA announced this week that, in four years, the spacecraft will leave the end of our solar system.
The probe has been at the mercy of solar winds since 2004, being bombarded by charged particles traveling at one million miles an hour. The speeds of the winds have since slowed to zero, leading scientists to believe that the craft is now headed toward the end of the solar system.
“It’s telling us the heliopause is not too far ahead,” NASA project scientist Edward Stone said in a statement. The heliopause is the area of space where the sun’s solar winds are no longer strong enough to push against the wind of other surrounding stars.
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