Date: 15/12/2010

Voyager 1 space probe sensing final edge of solar system

The two 33 years old space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977 by NASA are heading towards interstellar space at a speed of 3.6 AU/year (Voyager 1) and 3.3 AU/year (Voyger 2 ) respectively. The Voyager 1, as reported in LA Times is feeling change in direction of sun particle emission, LA Times writes "hot ionized gas, or plasma, emitted by the sun is ramming into the cold gas and dust of interstellar space and changing direction, curling around to envelope the solar system in a giant cloud called the heliosphere", read the full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-voyager-20101215,0,1817696.story, giving hint to the scientists that the probe is close to interstellar space ( the space between two solar systems). The marvelous journey by these two human made space birds is a great achievement by scientists of 70s.

Think about the reliability of the electronics technology and components used in these probes; the border of test for human-made system. Voyager 1 is 17.4 billion KMs from Earth and Voyager 2 is 14.1 billion KMs from Earth, Each second the probe distance from earth changes by >10KMs. To see this data visit voyager's website voyager.jpl.nasa.gov.

If you are a communication-engineering student, try calculating how much time it is required to send a pulse of signal from Earth to the Voyager probe :Answer (Click this link).