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Science Section => Science General Discussion => Physics & Cosmology => Topic started by: dawiw on March 20, 2013, 04:46:49 PM

Title: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: dawiw on March 20, 2013, 04:46:49 PM
http://science.time.com/2013/03/20/huma ... liosphere/ (http://science.time.com/2013/03/20/humanity-leaves-the-solar-system-35-years-later-voyager-offically-exits-the-heliosphere/)

Space - the final frontier.

I wish the proble had more power to get picture or something and the sunlight from the suin will took. Sunlight takes 16.89 hours to get to Voyager 1.

(//http://timeecocentric.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/18-50625186_10.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1)
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: PopeyesPappy on March 20, 2013, 05:27:19 PM
Quote from: "dawiw"I wish the proble had more power to get picture or something and the sunlight from the suin will took. Sunlight takes 16.89 hours to get to Voyager 1.
Afraid I can't help grant your wish, and there probably wouldn't be a whole lot to see anyway. But along those lines is this picture of Earth and Jupiter taken from Mars by the Mars Global Surveyor about 10 years ago. Make sure to look at the full size image.

(//http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/earth_jupiter_100.jpg)

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/ (http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/)
Title:
Post by: SGOS on March 20, 2013, 06:46:26 PM
I read that from Pluto, our own sun would appear as no more than a dim star, just another small prick of light among the other stars.  That far out is pretty lonely so to speak.  No friendly warmth from the sun, and I assume there is never any daytime, just the continual darkness of night.

Classroom charts of the solar system aren't even close to actual scale.  If they were, you couldn't see anything.  Everything would be just too small.  Even in this bundle of localized bustling activity that we call our solar system, it's mostly just empty space on a much vaster scale than I ever imagined before.
Title: Re:
Post by: PopeyesPappy on March 20, 2013, 07:09:37 PM
Quote from: "SGOS"I read that from Pluto, our own sun would appear as no more than a dim star, just another small prick of light among the other stars.  That far out is pretty lonely so to speak.  No friendly warmth from the sun, and I assume there is never any daytime, just the continual darkness of night.

Yea, not much to see from Voyager's location.

QuoteClassroom charts of the solar system aren't even close to actual scale.  If they were, you couldn't see anything.  Everything would be just too small.  Even in this bundle of localized bustling activity that we call our solar system, it's mostly just empty space on a much vaster scale than I ever imagined before.
Bill Nye on the scale of our solar system.

[youtube:367ztfw8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Ob0xR0Ut8[/youtube:367ztfw8]
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: Jason78 on March 20, 2013, 08:07:30 PM
Quote from: "PopeyesPappy"
Quote from: "dawiw"I wish the proble had more power to get picture or something and the sunlight from the suin will took. Sunlight takes 16.89 hours to get to Voyager 1.
Afraid I can't help grant your wish, and there probably wouldn't be a whole lot to see anyway. But along those lines is this picture of Earth and Jupiter taken from Mars by the Mars Global Surveyor about 10 years ago. Make sure to look at the full size image.


Ohhh!  You can see some of Jupiters moons as well!  I like!
Title: Re: Re:
Post by: SGOS on March 20, 2013, 09:12:07 PM
Quote from: "PopeyesPappy"Bill Nye on the scale of our solar system.

Writer posted a YouTube video (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Ob0xR0Ut8)
He rather gets the point across quite well.
Title:
Post by: stromboli on March 20, 2013, 10:21:58 PM
And will return as v---ger and threaten to destroy the earth. Saw the movie.
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: Shiranu on March 20, 2013, 10:35:52 PM
It would help if we could define what the border of our system even is...
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: GurrenLagann on March 21, 2013, 01:52:05 AM
Quote from: "Shiranu"It would help if we could define what the border of our system even is...

Doesn't it tend to be asserted that the Oort Cloud (if it exists) is the rough boundary?
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: BarkAtTheMoon on March 21, 2013, 09:53:46 AM
Quote from: "GurrenLagann"
Quote from: "Shiranu"It would help if we could define what the border of our system even is...

Doesn't it tend to be asserted that the Oort Cloud (if it exists) is the rough boundary?

(//http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2004/10/4_dc08febfcab194aed2ada6677c525dc62.jpg)

The Oort Cloud is considered beyond the solar system. Voyager is somewhere around the gray area in that picture where the solar wind hits and is basically stopped by the interstellar particles. The tough thing about figuring out what's going on is nothing's a clean line out there. I think the final line will be when the magnetic field lines completely reverse from what it is in the solar system. Right now, it's basically dangling half way in the middle if I'm not mistaken.

Phil Plaitt has a lot of good info about all this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... ystem.html (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/20/voyager_1_the_spacecraft_has_apparently_left_the_solar_system.html)
Title:
Post by: Nonsensei on March 21, 2013, 09:55:22 AM
NASA says Voyager 1 will not enter interstellar space for up to 25,000 years.
Title: Re:
Post by: Shiranu on March 21, 2013, 02:02:54 PM
Quote from: "Nonsensei"NASA says Voyager 1 will not enter interstellar space for up to 25,000 years.

Almost there :D.

But seriously... I think everyone can agree its REAAAALY fucking far away, and that's pretty awesome.
Title:
Post by: SGOS on March 21, 2013, 02:56:12 PM
What happens when aliens finally intercept the thing?  I have this notion of an alien reaction:  "What is this thing?  Who keeps sending us this shit, and what the fuck are we supposed to do with it?"

Or maybe some variation of, "If you find a watch on the beach, you know it has to have a creator, but why does the creator send us this useless stuff?"
Title: Re:
Post by: PopeyesPappy on March 21, 2013, 03:01:46 PM
Quote from: "SGOS"What happens when aliens finally intercept the thing?  I have this notion of an alien reaction:  "What is this thing?  Who keeps sending us this shit, and what the fuck are we supposed to do with it?"

Or maybe some variation of, "If you find a watch on the beach, you know it has to have a creator, but why does the creator send us this useless stuff?"
Stromboli covered that in this post (//http://atheistforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=932&p=929564#p929564).
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: stromboli on March 21, 2013, 07:23:56 PM
Assuming a vast number of potentially habitable planets, and assuming that some- millions- of them may be inhabited, the odds are that other life forms on other planets are at our stage of development or even ahead of us. That also assumes that they have sent out probes to other solar systems. Again, potentially millions.

It is therefore quite possible that we may, as our science advances, encounter one or more of those probes. I would think the odds greater than encountering the actual life form itself. So if we get gobsmacked by an alien version of Voyager, don't be too surprised.
Title: Re: Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?
Post by: Colanth on March 21, 2013, 08:21:47 PM
Quote from: "stromboli"Assuming a vast number of potentially habitable planets, and assuming that some- millions- of them may be inhabited, the odds are that other life forms on other planets are at our stage of development or even ahead of us. That also assumes that they have sent out probes to other solar systems. Again, potentially millions.

It is therefore quite possible that we may, as our science advances, encounter one or more of those probes. I would think the odds greater than encountering the actual life form itself. So if we get gobsmacked by an alien version of Voyager, don't be too surprised.
And don't be surprised if theists claim that it's proof of their god.
Title: Re:
Post by: Seabear on March 21, 2013, 11:25:01 PM
Quote from: "SGOS"I read that from Pluto, our own sun would appear as no more than a dim star, just another small prick of light among the other stars.  That far out is pretty lonely so to speak.  No friendly warmth from the sun, and I assume there is never any daytime, just the continual darkness of night.

Classroom charts of the solar system aren't even close to actual scale.  If they were, you couldn't see anything.  Everything would be just too small.  Even in this bundle of localized bustling activity that we call our solar system, it's mostly just empty space on a much vaster scale than I ever imagined before.
If the Sun were the size of a basketball, Earth would be 93 feet away. Jupiter would be ~500 feet away, and Saturn ~1000. Pluto would be almost 4000 feet away.

If the Sun were the size of a ping pong ball, the nearest star would be over 400 miles away.

If the Milky Way was only 1" in diameter, we know of enough galaxies to fill the volume of the Astrodome.

Lots of fun analogies... If earth was 1" from the Sun, a light-year is ~1 mile. If a hydrogen nucleus was 1" the electron is 3 feet away.

And so it goes.
Title:
Post by: NitzWalsh on March 22, 2013, 03:42:41 AM
If a hydrogen nucleus was 1", how far away from the sun would the Earth be?
Title: Re:
Post by: Plu on March 22, 2013, 04:18:52 AM
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If a hydrogen nucleus was 1", how far away from the sun would the Earth be?

About 21,713,063,000,000,000,000,000 meters. Although given the size of the numbers, there's bound to be some rounding errors in there :P
Title: Re:
Post by: Jason78 on March 22, 2013, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If a hydrogen nucleus was 1", how far away from the sun would the Earth be?

Don't ask people that are good at maths dumb arse questions.  

Because you will get an answer!
Title: Re: Re:
Post by: NitzWalsh on March 23, 2013, 01:47:35 AM
Quote from: "Jason78"
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If a hydrogen nucleus was 1", how far away from the sun would the Earth be?

Don't ask people that are good at maths dumb arse questions.  

Because you will get an answer!

I wanted an answer. But Plu should have used scientific notation.
Title: Re:
Post by: Thumpalumpacus on March 23, 2013, 02:10:25 AM
Quote from: "SGOS"What happens when aliens finally intercept the thing?  I have this notion of an alien reaction:  "What is this thing?  Who keeps sending us this shit, and what the fuck are we supposed to do with it?"

Or maybe some variation of, "If you find a watch on the beach, you know it has to have a creator, but why does the creator send us this useless stuff?"

Pretty sure it'll be, "Goddamnit, FedEx fucked up again."