Anyone else absolutely fascinated by the idea of learning more about intra-galaxy (interstellar) extra-solar system medium? Voyager surfs Solar System's edge That's the news summary, here's the real web page: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ The details: It boggles my mind we are going where we haven't gone before.
More than fascinated! Voyagers 1 & 2 are such a defining part of my childhood. That they are still with us, still adding to our knowledge is... mythical. Watching Carl Sagan's COSMOS as a kid with my family, him of course talking about Voyager, was something that removed so many walls from my imagination.
It's pretty awesome that they're still chugging along. It also gives you a sense of how big our solar system is. 20+ years just to reach the orbit of Pluto. That's incredible.
Especally when you consider the serious speeds they must have been doing up there with nothing to slow them down.
Yeah I had to really stretch here to get my fictional societies to another planet and make it plausible.
What's even more mind-boggling is that that distance, as vast as it is, would have to me multiplied by over two billion to reach our nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. It has taken 36 years to go this far, so we're talking about over 72 million years to reach Proxima Centauri, if Voyager were traveling in the right direction. That's about the same amount of time that has passed since the Cretaceous era. Think of two beads, each 1 cm in diameter, each representing a shell whose radius is Voyager's current distance. A shell the size of our solar system, as defined in the article. The two beads would be separated by roughly 1000 km, comparable to the distance from New York to Chicago. All that space in between is essentially empty. And that's only the distance to the nearest extrasolar star. Exercises like this give the beginnings of an appreciation of the scale of the universe.
And yet the universe could be the smallest part of a super giant being. Think of it as you living in an electron of one the atoms that make up a human. The vastness and shear number of atoms would seem incredible. The natural calamities we see could be the effect of some sort of medicine the super giant being takes to control its haemorrhoids. Hmm may be I should try science fiction Anyway, thanks for the post. Needless to say I am quite a nerd about these kind of stuff.
It used to be said it took a million years for a photon to cross the Sun's radius to get outside. The Long Climb from the Sun's Core I guess new estimates are 17,000 to 40,000 years.
Man those Voyager probes are real troopers, it's amazing they're still chugging along all these years later. They really knew how to build them back then, I can't even buy a laptop that lasts ten years :O
I love this kind of stuff.When you think about how big the universe is, even just our solar system, it kind of puts things into perspective lol
The reason you can't buy laptops like those is not that they don't know how to build them lasting, they do, it's because of capitalism. If they built laptops of top quality, everything just perfect, they would not be getting much money 'cause those laptops would run without problems for decades. So, to put it short, they intentionally produce crap that barely lasts a year or two, just so you would be forced to buy new ones. It's plain and simple greed, and that's all capitalism breeds. And this goes about every (almost) product out there that needs constant maintenance or those that require parts replaced after a rather short while. It's painful to think about things like this, to see what really is going on while it could all be so so much better. The only reason is money. If they produced stuff only because it's needed, not because of money, then matters would be very different. Everything is off balance. If products weren't produced having only money in mind then there'd be less people wasting their time on making more of those, because those already made would last longer, and as they'd last longer replacements wouldn't be needed so often. That excessive workforce would be directed into other areas. As should be clear, there are people who can barely afford food or just live in shitty conditions, yet they do important jobs (seemingly simple or menial jobs doesn't mean they are pointless, those are the blood of humanity's progress, without those there couldn't be anything we so much like), and then there are those who barely move a finger (compared to the ones struggling) and they live how, in "luxury", in excess, they have more than they will ever need. There's such inefficiency going on, not to mention overall plain stupidity... all because of money, because some morons cannot see beyond it, because they live for money, and as such their worth to humanity is negative compared to how it all could be. Isn't it wise to strive for best possible? Yet that's not happening, as is obvious. If you viewed the quality of products decades past till now, you'd notice a significant reduction in quality. Rather off topic... But hey, so what? It's still true, and I was bored.
I've had this conversation with my son who has a different generational view. I get annoyed when I can no longer buy a replacement part such as a battery for a digital camera. He argues, yes but the technology is so advanced and cameras cheap enough, I should want to upgrade anyway. I could say that he was brainwashed by marketers, or, that I'm plagued by future shock and technological advances are a fact of life now. I'm not bored, but until there's more Voyager news, the thread's in a lull.
For sure. You cant call in the Geek Squad to replace a fried motherboard out there. Failure is not an option!
It's official, Voyager has left the building, maybe. Voyager left solar system last year, new research shows Silly scientists, always with their own models.
36 years, amazing. 'The Voyager Golden Records are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for future humans, who may find them.' Interesting to think of how much has changed since then, and how much hasn't.
From a member of a different forum: "The distinct drop in solar particles is holding:" Image courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
