Voyager 2 Probe Launched in 1977 Just Entered Interstellar Space

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has become the second-ever manmade spacecraft to enter interstellar space, the agency said Monday.

The probe, launched in 1977 to study the planets farthest from Earth, crossed the outermost edge of what’s called the heliosphere — a protective bubble created by our sun — on Nov. 5. It is now more than 11 billion miles from Earth, according to NASA. (The sun is a mere 91 to 94.5 million miles from Earth.)

Like its sister spacecraft Voyager 1 (which crossed this boundary in 2012), Voyager 2 is now traveling in the space between stars.

Voyager 1 may have beaten Voyager 2 into interstellar space, but the latter spacecraft has an advantage. An instrument called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), which stopped working on Voyager 1 well before leaving the heliosphere, continues to operate on Voyager 2 – making it easier for scientists to learn about the spacecraft’s surroundings. Researchers are furthermore hopeful that data transmitted from Voyager 2 will make it possible to learn about the sun’s influence at so far a distance from the center of our solar system.

http://time.com/5475269/voyager-2-interstellar-space/?xid=tcoshare