</s>NASA’s Voyager 2 is probing the space between the stars. For only the second time in recorded history, humans have sent a spacecraft outside the heliosphere, the protected circle of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun, and presumably Matthew McConaughey (ho-yay, Interstellar joke) .

The little spacecraft is now 11 billion miles from Earth. Since information takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth–even moving at the speed of light–scientists figured out that the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on November 5, thereby crossing over into an area of space known as the heliopause, which the NASA press office poetically describes as the place where “the hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium.”

Space enthusiasts will remember that Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, however Voyager 2’s passage is remarkable because it is outfitted with instruments like a cosmic ray subsystem and a magnetometer that will provide first-of-its-kind observations about the nature of interstellar space. According to NASA, Voyager’s Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), which stopped working on Voyager 1 back in 1980, “uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind,” giving scientists their first hint of what’s happening inside and now outside the heliosphere.

While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 won’t leave the solar system for some 300 years, as it extends beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud, a fact that is being included only because it’s fun to write the word Oort.</s>NASA said Monday that Voyager 2 exited the region of the sun's influence last month. The spacecraft is now beyond the outer boundary of the heliosphere, some 11 billion miles from Earth. It's trailing Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012. Interstellar space is the vast mostly emptiness between star systems.</s>NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has left the protective bubble around the Sun and is flying through interstellar space, becoming the second human-made object to travel so far, the US space agency said on Monday.

The announcement came six years after its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, broke the outer boundary of the heliopause, where the hot solar wind meets the cold, dense space between stars, known as the interstellar medium.

Voyager 2 is now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometres) from Earth, having passed the boundary on November 5.

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“This time is even better for us,” said Nicky Fox, director of the heliophysics division at NASA, noting that one instrument, called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), is still functioning on Voyager 2.

“To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun’s influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory.”

The same instrument on Voyager 1 stopped working in 1980.

The two spacecraft, which look like a combination of a satellite dish and an old television set with rabbit ear antennas, were launched in 1977 on a mission to explore planets in our solar system.

The twin probes have left the heliosphere, but have not yet left the solar system, “and won’t be leaving anytime soon,” NASA said in a statement.

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“The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud, a collection of small objects that are still under the influence of the Sun’s gravity.”

NASA says it will take about 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud, and possibly 30,000 years to fly beyond it.

“We’re looking forward to what we’ll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The two spacecraft were designed to last five years and study Jupiter and Saturn.

“Both spacecraft are very healthy if you consider them senior citizens,” said Suzanne Dodd, Director for the Interplanetary Network Directorate, as the science results were unveiled at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in the US capital.

A key concern is a power, and NASA has to keep shutting down instruments to reserve power. But they may have five to 10 years left of life, she said.

Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record of Earth sounds, pictures and messages, which aims to serve as evidence of Earth’s civilization.</s>(CNN) — NASA’s Voyager 2 probe, launched in 1977, is now more than 11 billion miles from Earth and has reached interstellar space, the agency said Monday. This is the second time a human-made object has reached this part of space. And it’s an incredible feat for a spacecraft designed to last five years.

Voyager 2 is now NASA’s longest-running mission, with 41 years under its belt.

This boundary is where hot solar wind meets cold interstellar space, and it’s called the heliopause. Mission scientists compared data from instruments on Voyager 2 to determine that the actual date of the crossing was November 5, when the solar wind particles around the probe dipped greatly, meaning it left the heliosphere.

“There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause,” Voyager project scientist Ed Stone said in a statement.

Voyager 1, launched just a few weeks after Voyager 2, crossed the same boundary in 2012 and exited the heliosphere, a bubble of magnetic fields and particles created by the sun.

However, just because the probes have left the heliosphere doesn’t mean they have left our solar system. Its boundary is the outermost edge of the Oort Cloud, a group of small objects influenced by the gravity of our sun.

The mission scientists believe that it would take Voyager 2,300 years to reach the inner edge of the cloud and 30,000 years to fly past it completely.

Voyager 2 carries something unique: the Plasma Science Experiment instrument. This instrument stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, but it’s still operating on Voyager 2.

The instrument will be able to take unprecedented observations in this part of interstellar space and send them back to mission scientists. The scientists can still communicate with Voyager 2, even in interstellar space, but the data takes about 16.5 hours to travel back to Earth.

“Voyager has a very special place for us in our heliophysics fleet,” Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement. “Our studies start at the Sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches. To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun’s influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory.”

The probes are now “senior citizens,” but they’re in “good health” considering their age, Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd said Monday. The greatest concerns about keeping the probes operating are power and thermal. Voyager 2 loses about 4 watts of power a year, and mission scientists have to shut off systems to keep instruments operating. The cameras for both probes are no longer on.

Voyager 2 is very cold — about 3.6 degrees Kelvin and close to the freezing point of hydrogen — causing concerns about the probe’s thruster.

Trades between power and thermal will continue to keep it operating as long as possible.

“There is a lot of science data ahead, and we anticipate we can operate for five to six or almost 10 more years, just not with all instruments on,” Dodd said. “There are difficult decisions ahead, but those will be made with getting the most science value back. My personal goal is to get them to last 50 years total.”

Voyager 2 launched August 20,1977, 16 days before Voyager 1. Both probes are landmark missions that continue the journey of exploration in unexplored territory, the agency said. Both were designed as five-year missions to study Jupiter and Saturn up close, and when those were successful, flybys were added for Uranus and Neptune.

Remote-control programming allowed the spacecraft to keep flying well beyond their intended targets and explore more of the “final frontier.”

Both probes still carry Golden Records containing pictures, messages and sounds from Earth because the spacecraft could outlast human civilization by billions of years.

“I think we’re all happy and relieved that the Voyager probes have both operated long enough to make it past this milestone,” Dodd said. “This is what we’ve all been waiting for. Now, we’re looking forward to what we’ll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause.”</s>NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has left the solar system and entered interstellar space, making history for being only the second man-made object to ever do so.

Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun – on November 5, scientists have determined after studying data from instruments on board.

It is currently estimated to be over 11 billion miles from Earth, and the Voyager 2 team are still able to communicate with it, although it takes about 16.5 hours for information to travel from the spacecraft back to Earth.

NASA will detail their findings at a news conference at 11 am EST (8 am PST) today at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington.

The spacecraft’s Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) instrument provided NASA with key data that confirmed it has crossed the threshold of the heliopause, where hot solar wind meets cold and dense interstellar medium. It detected a sharp fall in the speed of solar wind particles and hasn’t picked up any solar wind flow since.

Although Voyager 1 crossed the same threshold in 2012, it did so without the PLS.

Voyager 2 is carrying other important instruments that can conduct groundbreaking observations into this border and beyond.

The spacecraft left Earth in 1977 on a mission to study the outer planets, including Jupiter and Neptune. Since completing this initial mission, it has been studying the outer reaches of our solar system.

The device is expected to continue to transmit radio signals as it explores interstellar space until 2025.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!</s>Welcome to the history books, Voyager 2. NASA launched the probe back in 1977 and all these decades later it's finally stepped out into the space between the stars. It joins Voyager 1, which entered interstellar space in 2012.

NASA announced on Monday that Voyager 2 has left the heliosphere, an area the agency describes as a "vast bubble around the sun and the planets dominated by solar material and magnetic fields."

Data shows the probe crossed over on Nov. 5 and is now 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Voyager 2 carries an instrument called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) that detects the properties of solar wind. NASA noticed the PLS saw a serious decline in the speed of solar wind particles on Nov. 5. After that, it picked up no solar wind flow, indicating the probe's entry into interstellar space.

"Our studies start at the sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches," says Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA . "To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun's influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory."

Voyager 2 launched a couple weeks before Voyager 1, and both have long outlived their original five-year missions to study Jupiter and Saturn. NASA scientists are now excited to learn what the probes can teach us about the realm beyond the heliosphere boundary.

Besides passing the interstellar milestone, Voyager 2 is also NASA's longest running mission. The space agency hopes it will be able to collect data from the spacecraft until at least 2025.</s>In 1977, Voyager 2 launched from Earth to carry out an unprecedented mission to the outer solar system. Today, NASA reported that the 41-year-old spacecraft has reached interstellar shores, more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away, to begin a new phase of its mission between the stars.

Mission controllers were alerted to Voyager 2 entering interstellar space in November when its instruments detected a dramatic change in the space particles surrounding the spacecraft. Interstellar space lies just beyond the heliosphere, across a boundary called the heliopause. The heliosphere can be thought of as a magnetic bubble that's created by the sun, inflated by the solar wind — streams of charged particles that are continuously blowing into the heliosphere from the sun's lower atmosphere. The heliopause is the outermost region of the heliosphere, akin to the surface of a bubble, which separates the hot, tenuous solar wind from the cold and dense environment of the interstellar medium.

When monitoring data collected by Voyager 2's Plasma Science Experiment (PSE) on Nov. 5, 2018, the mission detected a very sharp decline in the quantity of high-energy particles associated with the solar wind. Three other instruments that measure space particles also detected a rapid decrease in solar wind particles and a sharp increase in cosmic rays; all evidence that pointed to Voyager 2 having left the solar wind and transitioning into an entirely different environment. Voyager 1 had already prepped us for this. In 2012, Voyager 1 also detected a steep decline in solar wind particle counts, signifying that it was the first of the pair to reach interstellar space. The PSE instrument stopped working for Voyager 1 in 1980, however, so Voyager 2 has been able to gather more in-depth information than its twin during this historic moment.

"There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause," said Ed Stone in the accompanying NASA/JPL press release. Stone is a Voyager project scientist who has been working on the Voyager program since 1972 and is now 82 years old.

The Voyager probes are the only spacecraft capable of taking "in-situ" measurements of this enigmatic region, measurements that are going to be used to complement observations by other missions located a little closer to home. For example, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) that is in Earth orbit is observing the interface between the heliosphere and interstellar space and trying to help astrophysicists understand how the interstellar medium interacts with the heliosphere as our solar system travels through interstellar space. With the help of Voyager 2's PSE, we can better understand the remote observations made by IBEX.

It's worth emphasizing that neither of the Voyager probes have physically left the solar system; they have left the heliosphere and entered interstellar space, but they have not escaped our star system, despite what some headlines have indicated. Some estimates suggest they won't do so for another 30,000 years! Our sun's gravitational influence reaches far beyond the heliopause, and countless billions of frozen objects occupy a region stretching as far away as 100,000 AU from the sun. One astronomical unit (or AU) is the average distance from the sun to Earth. At 11 billion miles, Voyager 2 is more than 122 AU away from Earth — which is still a very long way away, but certainly not beyond the solar system. As a comparison, Pluto's average distance from the sun is "only" 40 AU!

It's the length of time it takes to communicate with the Voyagers that underscores just how far away they are, however. It takes nearly 17 hours for a radio signal, traveling at the speed of light from Earth, to reach Voyager 2 — as a comparison, it takes a little more than eight minutes for light to travel from the sun to Earth.

Voyager 2 was launched in Aug. 20, 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1 and both were tasked with touring the outer solar system's planets. Now, 41 years later, the pair of robotic space explorers have left the planets far behind and represent humanity's first baby steps into the mysterious interstellar expanse. The science they continue to send back to Earth gives us a taste of the interstellar ocean and will prepare us if we, too, take that plunge to travel to other stars, and become a star-hopping species in the distant future.</s>NASA's Voyager 2 has become only the second human-made object to reach the space between stars.

NASA said Monday that Voyager 2 exited the region of the sun's influence last month. The spacecraft is now beyond the outer boundary of the heliosphere, some 18 billion kilometres (11 billion miles) from Earth. It's trailing Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012. Interstellar space is the vast mostly emptiness between star systems.

According to NASA, the Voyagers are still technically in our solar system. Scientists maintain the solar system stretches to the outer edge of the so-called Oort Cloud. It will take thousands of years for the spacecraft to get that far.

Despite the great distance, flight controllers are still in contact with Voyager 2.

The Voyagers launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 1977.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voyager 2, a NASA probe launched in 1977 and designed for just a five-year mission, has become only the second human-made object to enter interstellar space as it continues its marathon trek billions of miles (km) from Earth, scientists said on Monday.

Data from instruments aboard the spacecraft showed it crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere, a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields produced by the sun, on Nov. 5, the U.S. space agency said.

The boundary crossed by the intrepid probe as it journeys a bit more than 11 billion miles (18 billion km) from Earth is called the heliopause, a place where the hot solar wind runs up against the interstellar medium, the soup of stuff residing between the stars of our Milky Way galaxy.

“This is a very exciting time again in Voyager’s 41-year journey, so far, of exploring the planets and now the heliosphere and entering interstellar space,” Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech, told a news briefing.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, 16 days before its twin probe Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2’s instrument called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) is able to provide observations of the nature of this region of space. While Voyager 1 is still going strong on its own journey in interstellar space, its PLS stopped working in 1980.

The Voyager probes were designed to last five years and study the giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn. Their refusal to die has also let them study Uranus and Neptune, the solar system’s outermost giant planets.

Both probes carry a phonograph record. The gold-plated copper disk bears sounds, images and spoken greetings in multiple languages to depict Earth’s diversity of life and culture, intended to communicate with potential extraterrestrial beings who may encounter them.

The two probes have not officially exited the solar system, whose outermost region is a shell called the Oort Cloud comprised of numerous small icy objects still under the sun’s gravitational influence.

“I often get asked, ‘So, is this it for Voyager? You’ve crossed out of the heliopause. Is it done? Are we finished?’ Absolutely not. This is really, for me, the beginning of a new era of heliophysics science,” said Nicola Fox, director of the heliophysics division at NASA headquarters.

“We are fortunate enough to have two very brave sentinels that have left our heliosphere and are out truly looking at the other side of the boundary,” Fox added.
NASA announces that Voyager 2 entered into the interstellar medium after exiting the heliosphere on November 5.