How cool is this!

Humanity escapes the solar system: Voyager 1 signals that it has reached the edge of interstellar space - 11billion miles away

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 10:09 EST, 14 June 2012 | UPDATED: 10:09 EST, 14 June 2012


With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of - if not the - biggest achievement of the human race.

For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system - and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space.

The Voyager 1, built by Nasa and launched in 1977 has spent the last 35 years steadily increasing its distance from Earth, and is now now 17,970,000,000km - or 11,100,000,000miles - away, travelling at 10km a second.

Indications over the last week implies that Voyager 1 is now leaving the heliosphere - the last vestige of this solar system.


The probe is still detecting 'spikes' in the intensity of cosmic ray electrons - which lead scientists to think it's still within the 'heliosheath', the very outer edge of our solar system.
The Atlantic reports that the Voyager 1 - which is still managing to communicate with Earth with radio waves that reach us 16 hours later - is beginning to experience a bit of heat.

It is detecting more energetic particles around it, implying it it at the very edge of the heliosheath, which is like a bubble around the solar system, protecting us from the cosmic winds of deep space

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/art...l#ixzz1yfOqOirz