Voyager at Edge of Solar System | WP | 5.25.05
Scientists Predict ‘Historic Step’
After a storied, 28-year odyssey, NASA’s venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft appears to have reached the edge of the solar system, a turbulent zone of near-nothingness where the solar wind begins to give way to interstellar space in a cosmic cataclysm known as “termination shock,” scientists said yesterday.
“This is an historic step in Voyager’s race,” said California Institute of Technology physicist Edward C. Stone, the mission’s chief scientist since Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in the summer of 1977. “We have a totally new region of space to explore, and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”…
V’ger leaves the solar system.