NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has confirmed that the furthest human probe from Earth , Voyager 1, has suffered a new “tsunami wave” from the Sun as it continues its journey through interstellar space, evidencing that it left a year ago our star to enter a new frontier of the sea of stars .
This spacecraft, whose launch took place in 1977 , has flown by Jupiter and Saturn and thanks to this new confirmation, we know that after passing through the heliosphere, it continues to explore interstellar space towards the limits of our solar system, where it will it will accompany the Voyager 2 probe – launched just 16 days later – within a few years.
“Normally, interstellar space is like a calm lake, but when our Sun registers a burst, it sends a shock wave outward that reaches Voyager about a year later. The wave makes the plasma surrounding the spacecraft emit sounds, “says Ed Stone, a research participant since 1972.
According to experts, the solar tsunami has hit Voyager 1 three times since it entered interstellar space in 2012. “ The tsunami wave rings the plasma like a bell . While the plasma wave instrument allows us to measure the frequency of this sound, the cosmic ray instrument reveals what hit the bell – the shock wave from the sun, ”Stone clarifies. This sound is what evidences that Voyager is in interstellar space, that if it weren’t for these coronal mass ejections from the Sun, it would be in profound silence.
Image credit: NASA / JPL
