Farewell to the voyager

After 33 years of traveling and unconditionally helping us to understand our universe, Voyager 1 is no longer in our neighborhood. The spacecraft is now at the almost incomprehensible distance of more than 17 billion (17 x 10⁹) km from its home planet -our beloved Earth- and has left the influence from our Sun. In other words, the Voyager 1 has finally left our Solar System.

Artist concept of the two Voyager spacecraft as they approach interstellar space. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

The spacecraft is now in a region called "heliosheath", were the solar wind of our Sun has a velocity of almost zero in relation to our star.

Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5th, 1977, while its twin, the Voyager-2, was launched some days earlier, on August 20th. Together, they have studied all the exterior planets of our Solar System (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -no, I'm not forgetting Pluto: it's no longer a planet, get over it!).

 Artist rendering of the Voyager 1.

Voyager 1 is since February 17, 1998 the man-made object most distant from Earth, after it surpassed the distances traveled by the spacecrafts Pioneer 10 and 11.

More information on the Voyager 1 status and in the mission in general can be found here and here, respectively.

2012 phenomenon is a hoax

Ok, just a short one. The title of this post explains itself:

www.2012hoax.org

And some Neil Degrasse Tyson, of course.