Said JPL in a statement released at 2:01 p.m. “The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA’s Voyager 1 has left the solar system,” said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. “It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. "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.” 
 
 What’s not in dispute among any of the scientists is that the spacecraft is now, undeniably, in a new and unexplored region—pushing the reach of humanity farther than it’s ever gone before. Whether or not this means the probe is outside the solar system or simply in a new, previously undiscovered area remains to be seen. After making an incredible tour of the outer planets of our solar system, the probe was directed on a course away from the sun and is now more than 18 billion kilometers from our world. On August 25, 2012, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft measured drastic changes in radiation levels, more than 11 billion miles from the Sun. Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays trapped in the outer heliosphere, all but vanished, dropping to less than 1 percent of previous amounts. At the same time, galactic cosmic rays – cosmic radiation from outside of the solar system – spiked to levels not seen since Voyager’s launch, with intensities as much as twice previous levels. The findings have been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. "Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, in a statement. “It’s outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that,” Webber said. 20 suggests that the spacecraft has entered a new region, where the charged-particle wind emitted by the sun no longer dominates, and will soon venture into interstellar space. And everything we’re measuring is different and exciting.” The work was funded by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Window on Infinity: The Month in Space) 
 
 The original article has been updated to include an initial response from NASA.
– Space fans will have to hold off on popping the champagne cork. After the American Geophysical Union declared this morning that Voyager 1 had achieved the mind-boggling feat of leaving our solar system, NASA threw a wet blanket on the party, at least temporarily, reports Time. “It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," says project scientist Edward Stone. The AGU later toned down its press release. The spacecraft, launched in 1977, is at the very least close to the edge of the solar system, but NASA says it needs more data, specifically the detection of a "change in the direction of the magnetic field," to declare Voyager the first interstellar traveler, reports Space.com. The fact that it's in such new territory is what makes verification tricky. "It is actually a very difficult problem identifying exactly where the solar system ends and interstellar space begins," writes Adam Mann at Wired.