Voyager in Interstellar Space Professor John Belcher MIT Department of Physics

100,000 light years across

20 light days across

Interstellar Medium Heliopause Termination Shock Heliosphere Link to movie Heliosphere

Voyager 1 in Interstellar Medium Termination Shock As of 26 December 2014, Voyager 2 was 9.998 billion miles from Earth (106.5 Astronomical Units from the Sun), well beyond the orbit of Pluto. Voyager 2 is leaving the solar system at 36,000 miles per hour, which is 3.2 AU per year, or 1 light year per 18,600 years. On the same date, the light travel time from Voyager 2 to Earth was 14 hours, 54 minutes, 31 seconds. Data are returned from the spacecraft at 160 bits per second, using a transmitter with about 25 watts (!) of power. Heliopause Voyager 2 in shocked solar wind

Galactic Cosmic Rays Energetic Particles Accelerated in Heliosphere

History Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock in December 2004 at 94 AU The MIT plasma instrument on Voyager 1 has been dead since 1981, but the plasma instrument on Voyager 2 is alive and well. Voyager 2 crossed the termination shock in Aug 2007 at 84 AU Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause into interstellar space on August 25, 2012 We are still waiting for Voyager 2 to cross into interstellar space, and for the first direct measurements of the interstellar plasma

50 days of recent heliosheath data from Voyager 2 MIT Plasma Science Experiment Last data on Friday May 29, 2015 Instrument operating since August 20, 1977

The local bubble is very hot million degree plasma which is totally ionized. But there is a smaller region in the local bubble, the local fluff, which is much cooler (6500 K), and the sun is presently in that region Frisch & Huff