TheVoyager 1 sonda, from the US Space Agency (NASA), has become thefirst man-made object to enter interstellar space and leave the solar system, according to solid evidence echoed by the magazine todayScience. Nothing less than36 years since its launchand it is located more than 125 astronomical units away from the Sun, making it the artificial object that has moved the furthest from the Sun to date.
According to the space physicist at the University of Iowa (USA) Don Gurnett, co-author of the paper, the first solid evidence that Voyager 1 hcrossed the heliopause-the magnetic border that separates the Sun, the planets of the solar system and the solar wind from the rest of the galaxy- is that, between April 9 and May 22 of this year, the probe’s plasma instrument detectedoscillations of plasma electrons at a frequency 40 times higher than that within the heliosphere. That density is close to the value that scientists expected to find in the interstellar medium. It is estimated that the border crossing between solar plasma and interstellar plasma occurred in August 2012. The researchers compare this moment with the first steps on the Moon. “We are in a new region of space, where nothing has been before”Said Ed Stone, the mission’s chief scientist.
However, the journey is not over. Now that you are out it will help to understand what the region of interstellar space looks like. “Voyager 1 has boldly arrived where no other probe has traveled before, marking one of the most significant technological achievements in the annals of science history,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, speaking of the milestone of this “first interstellar envoy”.
