The United States' Voyager 1 spacecraft is close to becoming the
first human-made object to travel between the stars.
The spacecraft, which is now more
than 11 billion miles from the sun, has entered the so-called "magnetic
highway," showing scientists two of the three signs they believe will
confirm it has entered interstellar space: the presence of charged particles
from the sun shooting out into space; and cosmic rays from outside coming into
the heliosphere, which can be thought of as the region of space dominated by
the sun.
This artist's concept shows NASA's
two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the
"heliosheath," the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles
around our sun.
The third sign, an abrupt change in
the direction of the magnetic field, would indicate the presence of the
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