Print Email Font ResizeNew study and NASA at odds over current Voyager 1 locationBoulder ware on board; craft said to enter new space regionBy Charlie Brennan Camera Staff WriterPosted:
An image of Voyager
(NASA)In 1977, Elvis Presley left the building -- as some have put it -- and the NASA space probes Voyager 1 and 2 took off for what was dubbed by scientists as a grand tour of the solar system. Now, a report has surfaced that Voyager 1 has, in a sense, followed Elvis out of the building -- passing entirely out of our region of space, carrying with it scientific instrumentation designed at the University of Colorado. That report, however, is firmly contested by the Voyager team at NASA. On Aug. 25, 2012, Voyager 1 measured drastic changes in radiation levels more than 11 billion miles from the sun, according to new findings published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. The gold-plated copper record that is riding onboard Voyager 1 and 2 in an attempt to communicate with alien life. The recordings were created with the assistance of Boulder-based Colorado Video Inc.
(NASA)Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays trapped in the outer heliosphere -- the region of space dominated by the sun or the solar wind -- practically vanished, decreasing to less than 1 percent of previous readings. Simultaneously, cosmic radiation from outside the solar system jumped to levels that had not been registered since Voyager 1's launch. In the GRL article, the authors state, "It appears that (Voyager 1) has exited the main solar modulation region, revealing (hydrogen) and (helium) spectra characteristic of those to be expected in the local interstellar medium." Calling the space transition boundary a "heliocliff," study co-author and New Mexico State University professor Bill Webber added in a news release, "We're in a new region. And everything we're measuring is different and exciting." Advertisement
NASA, however, begs to differ. Hours after the announcement of the GRL report, NASA issued a dissenting statement attributed to Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Ca. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," Stone said. "In December 2012, the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called 'the magnetic highway' where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space, and that change of direction has not yet been observed." Webber did not return calls or an email seeking comment Wednesday. The Colorado-crafted instruments on board both Voyagers were to serve as their eyes and ears. One is a photopolarimeter, essentially a small telescope about the size of a fruit can, built at CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The second is a radio astronomy instrument, built by Colorado-based Martin Marietta, designed to pick up radio emissions as it passed the four giant planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as emissions from both Earth and the sun. The photopolarimeter on board Voyager 1 became blinded as it reached Jupiter in the spring of 1979. But by the time Voyager 2 reached Jupiter four months later, calibration adjustments on the instrument enabled it to make important discoveries there, as well as all the planets it passed. A NASA report in August 2012 had placed Voyager 2 -- actually launched 16 days ahead of Voyager 1 -- about 9 billion miles away from the sun, and Voyager 1 roughly 11 billion miles from the sun, the two on differing trajectories. That report said the craft were exploring the outer layer of the heliosphere, the giant bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. Also on board each Voyager craft was a gold-plated copper phonograph record designed to communicate with any alien life they might encounter. The recordings were created with the assistance of Boulder-based Colorado Video Inc. Kirk Fowler, president of Colorado Video Inc., said his company's work was limited to providing audio tones that were generated to encode pictures: simple shapes such as circles for the purposes of would-be aliens' initial calibration efforts, then followed by images of "the Earth, and different peoples, and landscapes and scenes and cities and mathematics, just bunches of things." The phonograph also carried the sounds of thunder, surf and wind, as well as Beethoven, Bach and even a little Chuck Berry, for the more contemporary-inclined alternate life forms -- should the spacecraft encounter any. Reacting to Wednesday's reports on Voyager 1's progress, Fowler said, "It's gratifying that the spacecraft has far exceeded its original designed goal. ... It's quite an achievement we are still communicating with this thing, so far out there and at such an age." As for whether he believes any alien species might ever enjoy the offerings on that golden record, Fowler said, "I'm not sure the spacecraft is going fast enough to reach anybody. "More than likely, one likely scenario is that it's us that winds up hearing it. Future space explorers may catch up with that spacecraft. It's hard to say. Recently, we've been finding so many of these exoplanets, far more than we originally thought. That's encouraging. Maybe there is somebody on one of those planets that we'll find." Contact Camera Staff Writer Charlie Brennan at 303-473-1327 or .Print Email Font ResizeReturn to Top RELATED