Nasa’s Voyager 2 becomes the second man-made object to leave our solar system

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe becomes the second man-made object to leave our solar system

  •  NASA ’s Voyager 2 probe has now exited the heliosphere
  • This is the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun
  • News was revealed at meeting of American Geophysical Union in Washington 

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. 

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has now exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun. 

The news was revealed at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. 

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. The news was revealed at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington

NASA ’s probe has now exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun

NASA ’s probe has now exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun

Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5.

This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. 

Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. 

Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth.

 By comparison, light travelling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

The most compelling evidence of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause. 

The most compelling evidence (left) of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment (right), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause

The most compelling evidence (left) of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment (right), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause

Until recently, the space surrounding Voyager 2 was filled predominantly with plasma flowing out from our Sun. 

This outflow, called the solar wind, creates a bubble – the heliosphere – that envelopes the planets in our solar system. 

The PLS uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind. The PLS aboard Voyager 2 observed a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles on Nov. 5. 

Since that date, the plasma instrument has observed no solar wind flow in the environment around Voyager 2, which makes mission scientists confident the probe has left the heliosphere.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk