Voyager has left the Solar System? or not?

[dawiw]

http://science.time.com/2013/03/20/huma ... liosphere/

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.

[PopeyesPappy]

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/

[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.

[PopeyesPappy]

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.

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.

Bill Nye on the scale of our solar system.

[youtube:367ztfw8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Ob0xR0Ut8[/youtube:367ztfw8]

[Jason78]

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!

[SGOS]

Bill Nye on the scale of our solar system.

Writer posted a YouTube video

He rather gets the point across quite well.

[stromboli]

And will return as v---ger and threaten to destroy the earth. Saw the movie.

[Shiranu]

It would help if we could define what the border of our system even is...

[GurrenLagann]

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?

[BarkAtTheMoon]

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?

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

[Nonsensei]

NASA says Voyager 1 will not enter interstellar space for up to 25,000 years.

[Shiranu]

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.

[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?"

[PopeyesPappy]

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.

[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.