Voyager 1 is set to leave our Solar System.
"Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system's final frontier," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.
In November 2003, the Voyager team said data indicated the probe might have entered the termination shock region of the solar system. Some scientists thought it was only approaching that tumultuous layer, however. In fact, scientists don't know
where the edge is. They assume it moves, as changes in the speed and intensity of the solar wind force the boundary in and out."The consensus of the team now is that Voyager 1, at 8.7 billion miles from the Sun, has at last entered the heliosheath, the region beyond the termination shock," said MIT's John Richardson, principal investigator of the Voyager plasma science investigation. When the solar wind meets interstellar gas, a teardrop-shaped shockwave develops as it is slowed dramatically from an average speed of up to 1.5 million mph (700 kilometers per second). The solar wind, made of charged particles constantly streaming from the Sun, becomes denser and hotter at that point. Voyager 1 has sent back measurements of a stronger magnetic field at its current location.
That indicates the solar wind speed has decreased, scientists said. The magnetic field does not gain overall strength, but it becomes more dense and so stronger at any given location. As a rough analogy, consider how cars huddle closer when highway traffic slows, researchers suggested The magnetic field in November 2003 had increased in strength 1.7 times compared to previous levels. In December 2004 it jumped another factor of 2.5 and has remained at this higher level until now.
"Voyager's observations over the past few years show that the termination shock is far more complicated than anyone thought," said NASA scientist Eric Christian. The leading edge of the solar system, as it orbits the Milky Way, is called the bow shock.
It resembles the ripples of water raised by the bow of a boat. Voyager 1 still has years to go before it crosses the bow shock.The Voyager probes surveyed the outer planets as their primary mission. Each probe could operate through the year 2020, NASA said today in a statement.
The twin probes are on different paths out of the solar system. Voyager 2 is about 6.5 billion miles away. NASA has an animation showing Voyager approaching the solar sytem's edge.
We know what happens eventually in the 23rd century don't we? It comes back as a gigantic machine-sentience and ries to destroy the carbon units infesting the Enterprise but Spock mind-melds with it and all is okay when a couple of people go on some transcendent experience. It's all in Star Trek: the Motion Picture. :)
More Aggravation
China is complaining about the Yasukuni shrine again. The secretary general of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan, Tsutomu Takebe flat out told Hu Jintao it's none of their business and it's meddling in internal affairs. Son in a move as mature as a five year old taking his marbles home the Chinese government cancelled meetings for their Vice Premier Wu Yi and sent her onto the next stop in Mongolia.
The New York Times report is interesting:
One of five Japanese ministers to publicly criticize China today, Mr. Machimura reminded reporters that it was China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, who had requested the meeting with Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.
Japan's internal affairs minister, Taro Aso, bluntly warned, "This will contribute to a worsening of Japanese sentiment toward China."
Well, we could've guessed that, thank you very much. :)
Then, it goes on to say:
In April, anti-Chinese feelings were inflamed here after a series of protests in China against Japanese history textbooks that play down the atrocities it committed in China during the war, and against Mr. Koizumi's visits to the shrine. In a country as repressive as China, the protests - which degenerated into vandalism against Japanese businesses and government buildings in Shanghai - were widely seen as officially sanctioned. In a mid-May poll of 1,880 Japanese, 92 percent said they were dissatisfied with Beijing's refusal to apologize or compensate for the vandalism.
In the poll conducted for Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative newspaper, 85 percent said Mr. Koizumi should demand an apology and compensation, 74 percent said they were concerned about the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing and 77 percent said Japan should be more assertive in a dispute with China over gas deposits and a string of islands in the East China Sea.
On the question of the Yasukuni Shrine, 48 percent said they supported the prime minister's visits, while 45 percent were opposed.
Today, the president of the Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, criticized Mr. Koizumi's insistence on visiting the shrine, acknowledging that it "was a big factor in Vice Premier Wu's decision to cancel."
"If I become prime minister, I will not visit Yasukuni Shrine," the leader of Japan's main opposition party told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. Over the last half century, an opposition group has held power only once in Japan, from 1993 to 1996.
In other words, If China is seriously trying to get an outcome it should negotiate *something*. As it stands it is seen to be making grand-stands in order to humiliate the Japanese into doing something (or cease doing something as it were). As it stands, it looks like the Chinese are taking a free pass to humiliate Japan as much as possible for no forseeable outcome. They really should be doing the sums: Do they want the investmet or not? There are already murmurs in the investment community saying they'd rather invest anywhere but China where possible.
Reading the polls reported from Japan, it seems clear that only 48% think it's okay for the Prime Minister of Japan to visit the shrine. However upwards of 92% think that China should keep its nose out of internal affairs of another nation.
- Art Neuro
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