Astronomy Special:Voyager I Detects Third Shock Wave

Voyager I,which was launched in 1977,has experienced its third shock wave in deep space.This wave is the longest in duration-it started in February 2014 and continues to this day.The spacecraft is still making significant discoveries more than thirty-seven years after its launch,calling home every day.The waves are created when the Sun emits a coronal mass ejection and a cloud of magnetic plasma from its surface,which results in a pressure wave that hits the interstellar plasma where Voyager I is,causing ionised gas to resonate or vibrate like a bell.
Voyager I executed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn before heading for interstellar space,finally leaving the solar system in August 2012,a study published in Science magazine reckons.It left the heliosphere,the region of the solar wind.Voyager chief scientist Ed Stone confirmed this in September 2013.It will fly past distant comets in 30,000 years and near another star in 40,000 years,traveling now at more than 38,000 miles an hour.
According to Leonard Burlaga of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt,Maryland,this remarkable shock wave event raises questions that will stimulate new studies of the nature of shocks in the interstellar medium.Why has the third shock wave lasted so long?How fast is the wave moving?How broad a region does it cover?The first of Voyager I's shock waves was from October to November 2012;the second was from April to May 2013.
Voyager I's twin,Voyager II,was launched 16 days ahead of Voyager I on 20 August 1977;Voyager I followed on 5 September 1977.Each spacecraft weighs 722 kilograms.Voyager II will likely follow Voyager I out of the solar system in a few years-it had made a detour to fly by Uranus and Neptune,the only spacecraft ever to have visited these outer planets.

Voyager I Milestone Thrills Scientists

Just over a year ago,the venerable old Voyager I spacecraft left the solar system,although not the sun's influence entirely,and entered interstellar space,the space between the stars,NASA scientists reported this week.It is now in the transition zone just outside the solar bubble,and in the ionised gas between the stars.Some solar disturbance still obtains in this transition zone.
We believe this is mankind's histric leap into interstellar space,said Ed Stone,Voyager Project Scientist at Caltech,Pasadena.Voyager had entered the heliosphere,or solar bubble of charged particles which defines the edge of the solar system,in 2004.It first entered interstellar space on 12 August,2013,when an abrupt change in the density of energetic particles was first detected by Voyager I.
Suzanne Dodd,Voyager Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena,said we expect the fields and particles science instruments on Voyager will continue to send back data through at least 2020.We can't wait to see what the Voyager instruments show us next about deep space.
Voyager I's twin,Voyager II,was actually launched a few weeks ahead of Voyager I in 1977.Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn,but Voyager II veered off to fly by Uranus and Neptune as well.Scientists talk to or receive data from both spacecraft almost every day.It takes the weak 23 watt signal of Voyager I about 17 hours to reach earth.As of its February 21,2013 radio telescope image,Voyager I was 11.5 billion miles/18.5 billion kilometers from earth.It is now about 19 billion miles away.