And now for some real news, fans of science!
This is not a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but a once-in-history thing. I am only sorry there will not be a firm date which defines a clear boundary line, but at some point soon, Voyager One becomes the first manmade object ever to depart from the solar system.
The cameras were shut off long ago, but the instruments record an uptick in the particle count which indicates the spaceship has departed from, or nearly so, the relatively empty space that a sun sweeps clear of interstellar particles via solar light pressure. This envelope is called the heliosphere. The interstellar medium, if I can use the word without smiling, is thicker, by which I mean the vacuum is marginally less perfectly empty.
The signal takes sixteen hours at lightspeed to reach from the ship to receivers here on Earth or about about 121 astronomical units away.
Here is an article with some details
Voyager is a piece of tech that launched in 1977, and bears a famous gold plate with our greetings from Earth to any spacefaring civilizations who may be out in space waiting to greet us, whether Klingon or Kzinti or Barsoomians or Boskonians. Unfortunately, the man pictured on the plaque is in bell bottom jeans, dressed like John Travolta from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. It was the 70’s after all.
The fine fellows at Jet Propulsion Laboratories are still mildly embarrassed about that one.
BUT I NOTICE THE GOLD PLAQUE LISTS PLUTO AS A PLANET YOU DARN PLUTO-HATERS!
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
