Catalog Page for PIA17461

Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.

PIA17461: Heading toward Gliese 445

The image taken by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope, shows the star AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is on a trajectory out of our solar system, is headed toward an encounter with AC +79 3888 (circled in red).

Target Name:	Sol (our sun)
Mission:	Voyager
Spacecraft:	Voyager 1
Instrument:	Oschin Schmidt Telescope
Product Size:	891 x 893 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	Caltech/Palomar
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA17461.tif (796.7 kB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA17461.jpg (105.7 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Figure 1
Click on the image for larger version

At the center of this image is the star AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445, located 17.6 light-years from Earth. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is on a trajectory out of our solar system, is headed toward an encounter with AC +79 3888. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be closer to this star than our own sun.

The image was taken by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope near San Diego, Calif., on April 22, 1998. This telescope is operated by the California Institute of Technology and Palomar Observatory.

An annotated version circles AC +79 3888 in red (Figure 1).

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information about Voyager, visit http://www.nasa.gov/voyager and http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:

Caltech/Palomar

Image Addition Date:

2013-09-12