Titbit: Voyager 1 punching through to ‘Deep’ space

After a couple of false alarms NASA is now 95 percent sure that Voyager 1 (launched 36 years ago) is either now just leaving our solar system and entering into deep space, or may have already left the solar system and is now currently in a zone sandwiched between our solar system and deep space.

Voyager 1 is some 18,535,000,000 kilometres from the Earth and is on the very edge of the front edge of the solar system.

Data streaming back to Earth from Voyager 1, which takes about 17 hours to reach us after it is sent by Voyager 1, indicates that Voyager is moving through this region between the solar system and interstellar space.

Assuming NASA has it right then Voyager 1 is about to become the first man-made object to leave our solar system and enter into the wider reaches of the Milky Way galaxy.

In a way this is more amazing than the Moon landing. Something man made that is sending back data is about to leave our solar system.