Author: Lisa Grossman / Source: Science News
Voyager 2 has entered interstellar space.
The spacecraft slipped out of the huge bubble of particles that encircles the solar system on November 5, becoming the second ever human-made craft to cross the heliosphere, or the boundary between the sun and the stars.Coming in second place is no mean achievement. Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to exit the solar system in 2012. But that craft’s plasma instrument stopped working in 1980, leaving scientists without a direct view of the solar wind, hot charged particles constantly streaming from the sun (SN Online: 9/12/13). Voyager 2’s plasma sensors are still working, providing unprecedented views of the space between stars.
“We’ve been waiting with bated breath for the last couple of months for us to be able to see this,” NASA solar physicist Nicola Fox said at a Dec. 10 news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington, D.C.
NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft in 1977 on a grand tour of the solar system’s planets (SN: 8/19/17, p. 26). After that initial tour was over, both spacecraft continued travelling through the bubble of plasma that originates at the sun.
“When Voyager was launched, we didn’t know how large the bubble was, how long it would take to get [to its edge] and whether the spacecraft could last long enough to get there,” said Voyager project scientist…
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