Solar system a bit squashed, not nicely round
By Will Dunham
Wed Jul 2, 7:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solar system may not be a nice round shape, but rather a bit squashed and oblong, according to data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft exploring the solar system's outer limits, scientists said on Wednesday.

Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 unmanned probes are now studying the edges of the heliosphere, the huge magnetic "bubble" around our solar system created by the solar wind as it runs up against the thin gas in interstellar space.

The solar wind is made up of electrically charged particles blown into space in all directions by the sun. The boundary between the heliosphere and the rest of interstellar space is known as the "termination shock."

Voyager 2 in August 2007 crossed this boundary 7.8 billion miles from the sun.

Voyager 1 had crossed the boundary in December 2004 about 10 billion miles away from Voyager 1 and almost a billion miles farther from the sun.

Scientists think this indicates that the bubble carved into interstellar space by the heliosphere, which extends well past the distant orbit of Pluto, is not perfectly round, and the solar system is shaped a bit like an oblong.

"Imagine a balloon is being blown up by the solar wind. You might imagine that if you took a balloon, which is mainly spherical, and pushed it against the wall, it would be blunted on one side," said Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology, one of the scientists involved in the research.

That's what has happened with the heliosphere, he said.

The findings were published in the journal Nature.

The Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 with a mission to fly by and observe the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. The two spacecraft then continued their mission into the outer solar system. They are flying through remote, cold and dark conditions, powered by long-life nuclear batteries in the absence of solar energy.

V'Ger must evolve.

Not much launched in 1977 remains in service and pushing it's intended life-span limits.. Except Voyagers and Mercedes Benzes

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Tomas, Sweden
1966 Mercedes Benz 230S with OM617.912, automatic. Disk brakes from W108
1983 Mercedes Benz 300TD grey, OM617.912 and 5-speed manual
1983 Mercedes Benz 300TD blue 7-seater, OM617.912 and 5-speed manual

Why did we, and still, launch so few of these?

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Bang/buck is with planetary research & Earth observation.

Instant gratification. That's so like us humans. Can't wait 60 million years for an answer.

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Was there any data on how long it takes for the signal to be received on Earth at that distance?

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Jonathan

2011 Mazda2
2000 E320 4Matic Wagon
1994 C280 (retired)

> They are flying through remote, cold and dark conditions, powered by long-life nuclear batteries in the absence of solar energy.

31 years on one set of batteries in near absolute 0 temperature? Fuk fuel cells, i want some of those for my 'lectric car!!!

Light (and radio waves) travel at approximately 186,000 miles/sec. If Voyager 1 is 10 billion miles further than Voyager 2, and Voyager was at the 7.8 billion mile mark on 08/07 (from the sun), lets guestimate that Voyager 1 is probably about 20 billion miles away from earth.

At that distance, it would take a signal 20,000,000,000 mi./186,000 mi/sec = 107,526.88 seconds or almost 30 hours to reach earth.

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

30 light-hours sounds like a hell of a long way.

IIRC it is about 4.2 light-years to the next star.

That would be the famous Alpha Centauri.

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