This artist's concept depicts NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space, or the space between stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Humanity has now officially reached interstellar space, according to a historic NASA announcement today that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has left the solar system. Thus the much-debated is-it-or-isn't-it status of Voyager over the past few years has been firmly resolved — and the 36-year-old probe may have some of its most interesting science years still ahead of it. NASA reports:
New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our sun are still evident. A report on the analysis of this new data, an effort led by Don Gurnett and the plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa, Iowa ...
