NASA's Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge



Source:  NASA RELEASE: 11-402


Excerpt:  NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space.  ...Although Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space.  ...Scientists previously reported the outward speed of the solar wind had diminished to zero in April 2010, marking the start of the new region.  …"We've been using the flow of energetic charged particles at Voyager 1 as a kind of wind sock to estimate the solar wind velocity," said Rob Decker,... "We've found that the wind speeds are low in this region and gust erratically. For the first time, the wind even blows back at us. We are evidently traveling in completely new territory. ...For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager 

www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/dec/HQ_11-402_AGU_Voyager.html

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