Space : Voyager 2 has reached interstellar space

Six years after her twin sister, "Voyager 1" has left "Voyager 2" as the second spacecraft in the history of mankind, the heliosphere of the sun. Data analyses have shown that Voyager 2 already on 5. November had flown out of the area of the magnetic field of the sun, the US space Agency Nasa on Monday. The probe is now about 18 billion kilometers from earth, but that he could still communicate with the researchers – however, any Transfer of Information will take around 16.5 hours. Nasa scientists communicate with the probes via the Deep Space Network of Nasa. The required antennas in Goldstone (California), Madrid and Canberra.

The travelers to an unknown destination

Voyager 1 (English: traveler) was on 5. September 1977-launched Voyager 2, on 20. August 1977. The originally five-year missions have long been one of the most successful Nasa activities at all. The two the around a ton of heavy probes had a Rendezvous with Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 also visited Uranus and Neptune as the only probe, which flew past in all of this planet. In addition, the probes studied on their trip a total of 48 moons.

the Voyager Duo is Operated with heat from the decay of radioactive substances. Each of the three radio-nuclide batteries included to Start the 4.5 kilograms of Plutonium-238 with a half-life of 88 years. The batteries are housed in a bracket of the probe, so that their radiation affects the sensitive measuring instruments.

The Nasa probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the particle measurements show that outside of the heliosphere of the sun, down...photo: JPL-Caltech/Nasa/Reuters

one Of these instruments, the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), was in the case of Voyager 1 in 1980. In the case of Voyager 2, however, it worked and provided the Nasa scientists now the decisive note that the probe at the 5. November must have crossed the outermost edge of the heliosphere. To registered this point in time, namely the measuring device to a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles. Since then, the PLS has been measured around the probe with no solar wind. Therefore, the researchers believe, is likely to be Voyager 2, like its twin probe in interstellar space.

30,000 years up to the edge of the solar system

The sun did not leave the system, the two probes still – and will do so soon. The limit according to the current understanding of the so-called Oort cloud, a collection of small objects, in spite of the immense distance under the influence of the attraction by the sun, it said. It will take 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort cloud and possibly 30,000 years, until she through flew.

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space travel 40 years Voyager

Both ships have on Board a Golden record with sounds, images, and messages from the earth, which may be in the distant future, perhaps the only traces of human civilization. (with dpa)