Voyager 1 spacecraft entering 'heliopause,' leaving solar wind behind

[n2doc]

by Pete Spotts, Staff writer / December 14, 2010

Voyager 1 is about to kiss the solar system goodbye.

The plucky spacecraft – one of two Voyagers launched more than 30 years ago and now bound for interstellar space – appears to have reached a region within a broad boundary between the sun's influence and interstellar space where the speed of the solar wind's outflow reaches zero, scientists report.

The region is known as the heliopause, where the solar wind – a continuous flow of charged particles that streams from the sun in all directions at roughly 1 million miles per hour – is brought to a standstill as it meets interstellar winds head-on and gets deflected sideways.

"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, the mission's project scientist, in a statement. The Voyager team presented its evidence at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, currently under way in San Francisco.

The boundary between the sun's influence, known as the heliosphere, and interstellar space is thought to consist of four onion-like layers: the termination shock, where the solar wind grows increasingly turbulent as the sun plows through interstellar space; the heliosheath, where the wind grows turbulent and get compressed and heated; the heliopause, Voyager 1's current location, and the bow shock, the outermost region where the solar system in essence generates a wake in the tenuous gas and dust between stars.

more

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/1214/Voyager-1-spacecraft-entering-heliopause-leaving-solar-wind-behind

[louis-t]

1. Just watched Star Trek the movie, which was made in 1979.

Fantasizes about the Voyager finding its way to an alien planet that gives the craft the power to return to Earth to find its creator. Great idea for a movie, but a weak script and some really bad acting in this one.

[intheflow]

2. Absolutely the worst of all the ST movies. n/t

[Orrex]

3. I don't know. It's hard to be more worst than Star Trek V

Additionally, since the V'GER storyline was later bastardized in Trek novels to help "explain" the origin of the Borg, I'd say that ST:TMP should get some kind of amnesty. It's been punished enough.

[intheflow]

4. Perhaps in both storyline and direction.

Shatner can't direct any better than he sings. But at least it was a feature-length script. That first ST movie was an hour-long episode squeezed into 132 minutes. :eyes: Sloooooooooowest moooooovie evaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

And the uniforms were atrocious, a cross between fantastic voyage and Saturday Night Fever.

http://christiandivine.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/12/star-trek-i.jpg

[Orrex]

5. Yeah, the wardrobe is hard to forgive, Ilia notwithstanding

What's with those belly-buckle things?

Also, there are some moments in TPM that are truly unforgivable. When Chekov is burned by the V'GER probe, Dr. Chapel comes to the bridge, and Uhura says something like "Oh Christine, it's Chekov." Other similar examples abound.

The line is lame, and Nichols' delivery of it is so flat that it should never have made the final version. And apparently the director agreed--I don't believe that it's in the Director's Cut.

[n2doc]

6. Agree, V is the worst

But I also find ST III atrocious, especially the extended battle between Kirk and the Klingon leader (who was probably the worst klingon ever to disgrace the series, Christopher Lloyd). The only reason for the movie is to set up ST IV.