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Hear The Sounds Of Voyager 1, Mankind's Envoy At Solar System Milestone
Paris (AFP) May 25, 2005 A US scientist has posted the sounds of Voyager 1, the probe carrying a time capsule and greetings to other life forms, that were recorded as the craft crossed a turbulent boundary on the fringes of the Solar System. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now 13.92 billion kilometers (8.7 billion miles) from the Sun and has traversed the "termination shock," part of the frontier zone between the Solar System and interstellar space, University of Iowa physicist Don Gurnett says. The encounter was recorded by a plasma-wave instrument aboard the ancient spacecraft, which faithfully relayed the data back to Earth, where it was picked up by the antennae of NASA's Deep Space Network. "Termination shock" is the field in deep space where interstellar atoms crash at brutal speeds into the energy stream released from the distant Sun. A snippet of the recording - a hiss and series of enigmatic clicks - can be heard on (http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/). Gurnett, who operates the plasma-wave instrument, said in a press release received here Wednesday that Voyager 1 may still have another 10 years' travel before it is finally free of the Solar System. Exactly where this ultimate boundary, called the heliosphere, ends and yields to the relative serenity of interstellar space void has never been determined. It is impossible to accurately plot the boundary, known as the heliopause, from Earth and no man-made object, until now, has ever ventured so far. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5 1977 and with its companion, Voyager 2, explored all the giant planets of the outer Solar System - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Afterwards, their missions were reconfigured to send them on an exploration of the Solar System's fringe, called the heliosphere, and thereafter into interstellar space. Voyager 1 is 94 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and moving away at 3.5 AU per year, while Voyage 2 is about 76 AU and travelling at about 3.3 AU per year. An AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun (approximately 150 million kms or 93 million miles). The two craft should be able to operate until 2020, according to NASA estimates. They each carry a 12-inch (30-centimeter) gold-plated copper phonograph disk containing 115 images and greetings spoken in 55 languages, selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, as well as messages from the then US president, Jimmy Carter, and former UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links NASA's Deep Space Network SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News
Masten Space Applauds NASA's New Suborbital Challenges
Santa Clara CA (SPX) Oct 20, 2005Masten Space Systems announced Wednesday that it strongly supported the recent agreement between NASA and the X Prize Foundation to develop two suborbital Centennial Challenges and that, pending announcements on rules, it looked forward to participating. |
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