But Voyager 1 had another mission, one that continues to this day: to explore the outer reaches of the solar system. Today, a press release from the American Geophysical Union initially stated Voyager had left our solar system. This artist's concept shows the general locations of NASA's two Voyager spacecraft. But other scientists asked those scientists to hang on a second, because what about the magnetic field? Given the estimated lifetime of the plutonium battery aboard Voyager 1, its last signals should be heard on Earth around 2025, Stone says. Can the Voyager imaging cameras be turned back on? You will receive a verification email shortly. Scientists were surprised by NASA's finding that the galaxy's magnetic field is apparently aligned in the same direction as the sun's, forming a "magnetic highway." It is possible for the cameras to be turned on, but it is not a priority for Voyager's Interstellar Mission. I need more info. "It is quite an achievement in the short time that we have had spaceflight.". But it will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it. "It's going to come within 1.7 light-years of this star — and it'll swing by it, and it will continue to orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy." No one needs to tell that to the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is currently at the center of a controversy about where the solar system ends and interstellar space begins. "The spacecraft doesn't feel anything traveling into interstellar space. The spacecraft will eventually pass within 1.7 light years (about 16.1 trillion kilometers) of another star in 40,000 years, according to Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, The paper causing all the controversy has to do with cosmic rays (high-energy charged particles) both in and from outside the solar system. "It’s not quite the moon landing, but we are where the solar wind ends.". Solar storm aftershocks at the edge of the solar system provide confirmation that the Voyager 1 spacecraft made the passage on August 25, 2012, space agency scientists said Thursday. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012, nearly 35 years after blasting off, scientists announced Thursday (Sept. 12). So why the controversy? As a result, within the heliosphere there is very little interstellar radiation — but the moment you step outside, there is a lot. You can think of the heliopause as the cosmic signpost demarcating where our solar system ends, and interstellar space begins. Now that NASA's Voyager 1 probe has left the solar system, its next big spaceflight milestone comes with the flyby of another star — in 40,000 years. Sarah Scoles is an associate editor at Astronomy magazine, The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why.

(From "Solar System", James H. Shirley, in Encyclopedia of Planetary Science). The significance of the Voyager is the vast amount of new knowledge about our outer solar system it provided and the interest in further exploration it generated.

Voyager 1 and 2 obtained the first detailed profiles of the atmospheres of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and improved our understanding of the characteristics of the atmosphere of Jupiter. Voyager 1 is expected to keep its current suite of science instruments on through 2021. A gallery of Voyager-1’s best photos is at the end of the story. The unmanned Voyager 1 and 2 probes were launched in 1977 on a mission to visit all the outer planets of the solar system. Hydrazine is being used to control the spacecrafts' attitude. © The new report confirms an analysis made last year that found that Voyager had entered interstellar space, based on indirect measurements. It’s official: Voyager 1 has slipped from the solar system. The radioisotope thermoelectric generator on each spacecraft puts out 4 watts less each year.

", "In the same way that Sputnik carried us out of the Earth's atmosphere in 1957, Voyager has now carried us outside the sun's atmosphere," Krimigis says. Heaters and other spacecraft systems have also been turned off one by one as part of power management. "We have a lot to learn still, I think, is what it means," says Voyager scientist Stamatios Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, who reported the magnetic highway results last year. Voyager 1 was the first-ever object to reach interstellar space on August 25, 2012 when it passed beyond the sun’s realm of plasma influence (the heliosphere) and it is the most distant human-made object. A typical instruction takes 80 microseconds, that is about 8,000 instructions per second. Today, it is "dancing on the edge" of outer space as it prepares to enter what astronomers call the interstellar medium — but what is this region of space, exactly, where is it, and how do astronomers know we're so close? It will now continue on a course that, in 40,000 years, will take it within 1.7 light years of a star called AC+793888 — the first man-made object to pass so close to another star, and potentially other planets. Looking at a pair of solar storms that caught up to the spacecraft last October and then again last April, Gurnett’s team reported that measured changes in electrical activity around Voyager correspond to interstellar space.