Voyager 2 May Be Leaving the Solar System Soon, NASA Says

[Judi Lynn]

By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | October 5, 2018 04:57pm ET

Want to get away? Want to get far, far away? Voyager 2 has you beat: The spacecraft, launched in 1977, is approaching the edge of the solar system, according to a NASA statement released today (Oct. 5).

That announcement is based on two different instruments on board, which in late August began noticing a small uptick in how many cosmic rays — superfast particles pummeling the solar system from outer space — were hitting the spacecraft. That matches pretty well with what Voyager 1 began experiencing about three months before its own grand departure in 2012, but scientists can't be sure of the milestone until after it has been passed.

"We're seeing a change in the environment around Voyager 2, there's no doubt about that," Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone, a physicist at Caltech, said in the statement. "We're going to learn a lot in the coming months, but we still don't know when we'll reach the heliopause. We're not there yet — that's one thing I can say with confidence." [Voyager at 40: 40 Photos from NASA's Epic 'Grand Tour' Mission]

The team behind Voyager 2 knows that the spacecraft is currently almost 11 billion miles (17.7 billion kilometers) away from Earth. But it's hard to predict when the spacecraft will actually leave the solar system by passing through what scientists call the heliopause.

More:
https://www.space.com/42040-voyager-2-approaching-solar-system-edge.html?utm_source=notification

[qazplm135]

1. it hasn't even reached the Oort Cloud

how could it be leaving our solar system?