NASA says that Voyager has entered interstellar space

[Diche Bach]

A historic moment. I've been hoping for the past few years that I'd be alive to see this happen. Quite pleased that I was, and intrigued by what they are discovering. The seemingly parallel orientations of the solar and interstellar magnetic fields are bound to be huge areas for inquiry in the coming years.

Did I hear right in the NASA press conference video that Zank said the heliopause is "one million degrees!?"

How the heck did Voyager not melt when it passed through that?

Edited September 13, 2013 by Diche Bach

[DerekL1963]

Did I hear right in the NASA press conference video that Zank said the heliopause is "one million degrees!?"

How the heck did Voyager not melt when it passed through that?

Interstellar plasma is very hot, but it's not very dense. That's the same reason you can stick your hand into the air inside a 350 degree oven (for a least a few moments) and not get burned, while sticking your hand for even an instant into molten lead (327 degrees) would literally burn you to the bone in an instant.

[PakledHostage]

That's the same reason you can stick your hand into the air inside a 350 degree oven (for a least a few moments) and not get burned, while sticking your hand for even an instant into molten lead (327 degrees) would literally burn you to the bone in an instant.

While I recognize the point you are trying to make about the difference between exposure to high heat flux and high temperature, you picked an unfortunate example.

The Mythbusters did a segment proving that you can, in fact, briefly stick your hand into molten lead without getting burned. I'd post a link to the YouTube video, but it is hard to do from my smartphone.

[Albert VDS]

They should shut down every instrument but the camera and take a picture juste before 2025,we all want to see what interstellar space look like!

Even if they wanted to, there are a couple of reason why that wont happen.

Before it's 2025 most of the instruments would be disabled to save power.

The cameras takes a whole lot of power to operate and the radioisotope thermoelectric generator's power capacity diminishes over time.

There is just not enough power by the time it's 2025.

Now you could ask why they won't turn it on now to take a picture.

The reason why the camera used so much power is because of the heaters it used to keep healthy.

They've been deactivated for 23 years, the chances that they still work are very slim.

But lets say they still work. Then the next problem is that the camera software on Voyager has been removed so you need to rewrite that.

An other problem is that the computers which could read the images and understood the software don't exist anymore.

But lets say we somehow fix that problem, will it work then?

Yes it would, but what would we see? A blurry image of stars.

The camera wasn't designed to take pictures of stars, it won't be able to focus because it has no zoom.

But what if you could magically beam a focuser onto the camera?

You could see the sun, but it would be same size as all the other stars and all our planets wouldn't even be visible.

[Nibb31]

Yes, even if the camera could be restarted, a relatively low rez picture of a starry sky would be useless.

[TheCardinal]

And now we wait for the arrival of Vulcans .....

[lajoswinkler]

Here is a nice video.

http://vimeo.com/58626695