航海家一号冲出太阳系了！

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来源【一分钟太空】Voyager 1 May Have Reached The Heliopause
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After 34 years in space, 17 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 has reached or is about to reach the heliopause.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is poised to leave the solar system and reach interstellar space. In fact, it may already have.

航海家1号宇宙飞船随时可能飞出太阳系进入星际空间，事实上，它可能已经做到了。

Voyager 1 launched in 1977. It's now 17 billion kilometers from Earth. And it should be close to the heliopause, where the plasma flowing outward from the sun no longer holds back the interstellar winds.

发射于1977年的航海家一号如今距离地球已有170亿公里，现在应该已经接近太阳风顶层，在那里从太阳发射出的等离子太阳风已经不能抑制来自星际空间的宇宙射线。

The heliopause was expected to be a rather sharp boundary between the sun’s domain and interstellar space. But instead the spacecraft now finds itself in an unexpectedly tranquil zone. Voyager 1 no longer has the wind at its back, so to speak—since last year the velocity of the outward-flowing solar wind has been zero. And it has unexpectedly stayed that way for hundreds of millions of kilometers, according to a mission update in the journal Nature. [Stamatios Krimigis et al., Zero Outward Flow Velocity for Plasma in a Heliosheath Transition Layer"]

太阳风顶层曾被认为是处在太阳系区域和星际宇宙之间一层电磁波动极其强烈的区域。然而如今航海家一号却出乎意料的处在一个相对平静的空间区域中。航海家一号再也没有探测到其后的太阳风，实际上从去年开始，向外发射的太阳风在航海家一号附近已经停止了。事实上根据自然杂志的一项任务更新，航海家一号在这种状态下已经飞行了上亿公里了。

That could mean that Voyager 1 is drawing close to the heliopause, which just happens to be surrounded by a broad expanse of calm. Or it could mean that Voyager 1 has already crossed the heliopause. Either way, the spacecraft becomes the first object in interstellar space created by intelligent life. That we know about.

这可能意味着航海家一号如今已经接近于被广袤静谧所包围的太阳风顶层，也有可能航海家一号已经穿越了太阳风顶层。无论哪种方式，在我们的认知范围内，航海家1号已经成为了有史以来第一个由智慧生物创造的离开太阳系进入系外空间的地球物体。

—John Matson

——John Matson

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