La Voyager aún en la Heliosfera
Last summer, it looked like the Voyager 1
spacecraft might have finally reached its ultimate destination.
Thirty-five years
out from Earth and three times farther
from the sun than Pluto, the decrepit spacecraft reported a sharp drop
in plasma blowing
out from the sun and a sharp jump in
cosmic rays streaming in from out in the galaxy.
But three papers published online this week in Science
conclude that Voyager 1 has not left the heliosphere—the sun's magnetic
bubble inflated by its blowing plasma—and entered
interstellar space. That's because Voyager
found no accompanying switch from the magnetic field spiraling out from
the sun
to the magnetic field of interstellar
space.
Instead, Voyager
has discovered a hybrid part of the heliosphere lying between the
heliosphere proper and true interstellar
space. And nobody knows how far that
hybrid extends and when the spacecraft will actually make humankind's
first contact with
interstellar space.
Science. Volume 340, Number 6140, Issue of 28 June 2013
