Voyager 1 almost left the solar system

The automatic probe "Voyager-1" has already entered the space where there is no pressure of the solar wind. From July 28 to August 14, 2012, the instruments of the apparatus recorded five times the jumps in the number of protons and helium nuclei with an energy of 1.9-2.7 MeV in the surrounding space, while the density of particles with other charges remained almost unchanged. This suggests a fivefold intersection of the heliosphere — the heliopause — boundary, and that this boundary is very clear.

All subsequent months, astronomers carefully watched the readings of the Voyager instruments and continued to discuss whether Voyager-1 really entered the interstellar space or whether it entered a certain new and unnamed area between the heliosphere and interstellar space. It was decided to bow to the second option. The region has been called the "magnetic highway": it is a peculiar envelope of the solar system.

On March 20, the honorary professor of astronomy from the University of New Mexico, Bill Webber, officially announced that Voyager-1 still went beyond the solar system, and it happened on August 25, 2012 at a distance of 121.7 AU. from the sun. Since then, the radiation intensity of 1.9-2.7 MeV has decreased by 300-500 times.
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Thus, Voyager 1 was the first human probe to have gotten this far. He continues to fly forward at a speed of 17 kilometers per second, having accelerated due to several gravitational maneuvers.


A photograph of the Earth taken by the Voyager-1 apparatus in 1990 from a distance of 6 billion km (40 AU)

PS The official response from NASA on March 20 states that Voyager 1 has not yet reached interstellar space, despite the lack of a solar wind. The last indicator of going beyond the solar system should be a change in the direction of the magnetic field, which has not yet happened.