Voyager Enters Final Frontier Of Solar System Options

[MarcF]

I think it is Voyager 1 that is currently about 144 AU from the sun.Voyager 2 is about 119 AU, which is close to the 121 AU exit distance from Voyager 1. So Voyager 2 is coming out at a place where the boundary is a little bit closer from the sun than Voyager 1, as was also the case for the terminal shock crossing.
Regards
Marc.

[Roby72]

Thanks Marc !
That's only 1.5% near the value of Vgr1 - the idea of a round bubble is not as wrong as I thought !

[Floyd]

Thanks MarcF for pointing out my swapping Voyagers 1 & 2 current distances from Sun.

The >0.5 MeV/nuc ions particles/sec continues to drop to 5 today (11/24/18). Here are the figures again so they will be seen on this page of the thread.

Edit 11/26/18: Well reading have bounced up the past two days. Up from about 5 to 9 particles/sec in the >0.5 MeV/nuc ions. Hope counts don't bounce all the way back to 26, but we will see.

[Roby72]

I think it is Voyager 1 that is currently about 144 AU from the sun.Voyager 2 is about 119 AU, which is close to the 121 AU exit distance from Voyager 1. So Voyager 2 is coming out at a place where the boundary is a little bit closer from the sun than Voyager 1, as was also the case for the terminal shock crossing.
Regards
Marc.

When we define the exit out of the solar bubble at around 121 AU to 119 AU then also Pioneer 10 should be already out of it now according to this distance calculator:
https://spaceoutreach.com/spaceflight/leaving-solar-system/
Pioneer 10 runs at about 122.3 AU now
But this spacecraft is silent since 16 years !

[MarcF]

I like your link Roby72. It seems that Voyager 2 will soon catch up Pioneer 10. Pioneer 11 and the two Voyagers travel toward the sun apex direction, but Pioneer 10 takes the opposite direction. If the heliosphere has a bubble shape, Pioneer 10 could indeed have already crossed the heliopause. But if it has an elongated, comet-like shape as predicted by many models, Pioneer 10 would be very fare from leaving the influence of the solar wind.
Regards,
Marc.

[Floyd]

Well the instrument readings are headed back down after a significant bump up. I was beginning to think Voyager 2 had second thoughts about leaving the Heliopause and had turned around to come back (momentum is not a problem if you can flip the time reversal switch).

We may bounce some more--or not...

[Floyd]

Well, Voyager 2 is down to 3.5 particles/sec in the >0.5 MeV/nuc ions and up to 2.4 particles/sec in the >70 MeV/nuc ions. Outside the Heliopause Voyager 1 has had reading down in the 2-3 particles/sec in the >0.5 MeV/nuc ions and up to >2.2 particles/sec in the >70 MeV/nuc ions. SO VOYAGER 2 READINGS ARE AT VOYAGER 1 OUTSIDE THE HELIOPAUSE LEVEL. People may want to see current levels hold for a time before making an announcement, but I think we are within in one particle/sec in the >0.5 scale from being at Voyager 1 levels.

We are definitely in the Helioclif region

[MarcF]

Okay, it's done, Voyager 2 is officially in the interstellar space
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7301

Regards
Marc.

[Xcalibrator]

At the NASA/AGU press conf (11am EST) shown online, Ed Stone had a plot of the >70 MeV CRS particle flux with a V2 normalization factor of 1/1.08, so that the V2 interstellar flux (around 2.44) would match V1's 2.26 particle/s. Is there anyone at the AGU meeting who saw the conference talk who can comment on where that 1.08 came from? Is it just an empirical scaling so they match? I'd noticed the flux difference before and wondered if one might expect it because of real differences in particle density or velocity (or nonuniform velocity distribution if the detector orientation matters).

[Floyd]

Congratulation to Dr. Stone and the entire team. It has been exciting watching the graphs as Voyager 2 exited over the past 6 weeks.

[cIclops]

VIDEO Press Conference: Voyager 2: Updates on the journey to interstellar space

[Xcalibrator]

Both the Cosmic Ray Subsystem 0.5 MeV and >70MeV plots for V2 show stepwise drops in late June. The CRS is not directional, so it's not caused by any change in pointing. Could there be some other instrumental change, or does this indicate a real change in the plasma conditions (which would be really cool)?

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Xcalibrator]

Ah, it was instrumental. They've now added "CRS Heater Off" labels to the plots around 2019.486.