Voyager 1 poised to leave solar system
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027135
New York Times : The Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled more than 18.5 billion km since NASA launched it in 1977. With all its key instruments still working and its nuclear power source good until at least 2020, scientists believe Voyager 1 will be the first artificial object to cross the heliopause, the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. Because it has detected a drop in the solar wind and a jump in the number of cosmic rays, Voyager 1 is currently considered to be in the heliosheath depletion region. It could be just months or as many as several years, however, before it actually breaks free of the solar system, according to project scientist Edward Stone of Caltech.
