NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled beyond our solar bubble and has entered interstellar space.
During a NASA Headquarters briefing, the Voyager team assessing the data determined the craft is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble where some effects from our sun are still evident.
New, unexpected data indicate that Voyager 1 has been traveling through the plasma, or ionized gas, that originates in the space between the stars.
The spacecraft is now bathed in interstellar plasma, the material ejected from the death of nearby stars millions of years ago.
Speakers on the occasion were - Ed Stone- Voyager project scientist, California Institute of Technology; Don Gurnett - Voyager plasma wave investigation principal investigator, University of Iowa; Suzanne Dodd - Voyager project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Gary Zank, physics department chair, University of Alabama in Huntsville.