Voyager 1 Exiting Our Interstellar Space

[Ben]

I thought this was really cool. Voyager 1 launched when I was a teenager. Now it's the first manmade object to exit the solar system.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2159359/Humanity-escapes-solar-Voyager-1-signals-reached-edge-interstellar-space.html

[seeker_two]

Great....now the aliens will know we're here..... 

[RoadKingLarry]

Think of all the money wasted that could have been better spent on welfare programs.

 

[230RN]

Those who find this will probably dismiss it as some kind of religious talisman and forget it:



Like the "Venus of Willendorf," which has been touted as the earliest known representation of the Earth Mother... when it's probably just a pottery caricature of somebody's Mother-in-Law:

http://www.eternalsymbols.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/venus-willendorf.jpg

Terry, 230RN

REF:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Golden_record

[GigaBuist]

Now it's the first manmade object to exit the solar system.

Pioneer 10 and 11 already exited the solar system.  They launched years before the Voyager probes.

[vaskidmark]

We need to get into the WayBack Machine, reverse the polarity, and stop the launch of Voyager 6.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/V'Ger

The heart of V'Ger

The center contained the oldest part of V'Ger – Voyager 6, an unmanned space probe launched by NASA in the late 20th century. The entire vessel surrounding the Voyager probe was built by an unknown race of machine entities in order to help it complete what the latter interpreted to be its primary programming: "learn all that is learnable," and return that knowledge to its creator. During its journey, the probe came to think of itself as V'Ger after the only remaining legible letters from its original name (the "O", "Y", "A" and "6" on the nameplate being obscured from encounters with previous spatial hazards) and amassed knowledge to such a degree as to become self-aware.

I would not mind if there were some alien overlords to welcome, but I refuse to be assimilated with some of you clowns.

stay safe.

[AJ Dual]

Pioneer 10 and 11 already exited the solar system.  They launched years before the Voyager probes.

The Voyagers are moving faster, having gotten more grav-assists from passing more planets. And the Pioneers are going more in the direction of the "tail" of the heliopause, while the Voyagers are going more towards the bow-shock or "head".

[Hawkmoon]

Pioneer 10 and 11 already exited the solar system.  They launched years before the Voyager probes.

They may have launched first, but this diagram suggests that they haven't made it out yet:

[AJ Dual]

And no, calling it the "Heliosheath" doesn't make it any better...

[seeker_two]

Just the tip.....

[RoadKingLarry]

Penetration, however slight...

[lupinus]

same deferens

[French G.]

Well if the aliens find the thing they will show up here demanding to speak to Jimmy Carter, not good. Hopefully they will detect stray signals of reality TV and continue on by us, correctly concluding that there is no intelligent life here.

[birdman]

Pioneer 10 and 11 already exited the solar system.  They launched years before the Voyager probes.

Depends on your definition of solar system.  None have reached the outer Oort cloud (the outermost objects gravitationally bound to Sol), but all have past Neptune.  In this case, they are treating the heliopause (where the ambient particles change from those from the sun to those of galactic origin) as the boundary of concern.

So you can use a few definitions of the boundary of the solar system:
Past the last planet (Neptune)
Past the last gravitationally bound object
Transition into a galactic-dominated medium from a sol dominated one
Etc.

[Ben]

Past the last planet (Neptune)

[birdman]

Not surprising, but I have that shirt :)

[Ben]

Me too. I love Thinkgeek. :)

[bedlamite]

[Ben]

I also love Futurama.