Tuesday, December 4, 2012

"Houston, Are We There Yet?"


We all know the experience.  We pack, get in the car, and set out on a road trip vacation.  Thirty minutes later (if we are lucky), we are FINALLY reaching the last suburb before exiting urban sprawl and entering the wide-open country.  Same problem with space travel.  35 years, 2 months and 22 days after launch, the nimble Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the last suburb of out solar system before reaching wide-open interstellar space.  "This may be the last opportunity for fuel and a restroom break before entering the space between solar systems," said an unnamed Jet Propulsion Lab employee.  Voyager 1 is a little over 123 AUs (astronomical units) or 11.4 billion miles away from Earth.  The new zone into which Voyager entered is described as a "magnetic highway."  "Traffic has thinned out and in another couple of years, as long as the Russian Department of Transportation does not get involved, Voyager should be outside our solar city," said another unnamed, non-existent employee of JPL.

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