Dot Earth Blog: More on Population Growth and Planetary Prospects

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[News & Analysis] Planetary Science: It's Official—Voyager Has Left the Solar System

Science 13 September 2013:
Vol. 341 no. 6151 pp. 1158-1159
DOI: 10.1126/science.341.6151.1158 Planetary Science After 36 years of hurtling toward the edge of the solar system, the Voyager 1 spacecraft—its sensors failing, its energy running low—has crossed into the abyss of interstellar space. At least, after long disagreements, that is now the consensus view of Voyager mission team leaders. The space physicists' edge of the solar system "is not your usual planetary environment at all," says heliophysicist George Gloeckler, a Voyager team member since the 1960s. Even modern computer simulations could give no warning of the confusing weirdness Voyager 1 has encountered.

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[News Focus] Solar System Exploration: Pluto, the Last Planetary First

Science 16 August 2013:
Vol. 341 no. 6147 pp. 708-709
DOI: 10.1126/science.341.6147.708 Solar System Exploration Solar System Exploration The next planetary first will be our last. After traveling for 10 years and crossing more than 5 billion kilometers, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will flash by Pluto in a matter of hours, and an age of exploration will be over. Does Pluto hold geological wonders like those the Voyager 2 probe found in 1989 on Neptune's youthful moon Triton, a close relation of Pluto's? Or will Pluto present an eons-old, crater-pocked face like the one that Voyagers 1 and 2 found on Jupiter's big moon Callisto? It all depends on how much heat has been generated and retained inside Pluto since it formed.

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