Voyager 1 Passes 100 AU from the Sun

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, Voyager 1 passed 100 astronomical units from the sun as it continues operating after nearly 30 years in space. That is about 15 billion kilometers or 9.3 billion miles as it travels about 1 million miles per day. Scientists still hope it will find the edge of the solar system and get into interstellar space."

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators

[Lazbien]

The article states that Voyager 1 is using radioisotope thermoelectric generators to power the flight... not knowing what these were, I went to Wikipedia, which told me that they were used to generate a few hundred watts or less, and seem to get hot. My question from this is the application in to on-Earth areas. For instance, why aren't radioisotope thermoelectric generators used in Data Centers? Or Factories? Or Office Towers? Or on farms? Can't we take a few hundred of these, bury them in a sub-basement, and start generating our own power? I want my space age power, damnit. Any rocket scientists out there know the cost of one of these suckers?

Re:Poor V-ger

[Lurker2288]

Nah, if there are ETs out there capable of detecting it, retrieving it, and figuring out where it came from, chances are they can manage to go a little faster than a probe that's been coasting on a gravity slingshot for 30-odd years.

Re:Can we still ping it?

[WED Fan]

the craft's current rate of acceleration as it heads away from the sun is not consistent with current gravitional laws.

Could you amend that to read, "is not consistent with our current understanding of gravity" or "is not consistent with our apparently flawed gravitational laws"?

Really, I wish they would stop calling these things "law". Every generation sees a bushel of these "laws" being thrown out, adjusted, or ignored.

The Universe doesn't play by our "laws", it just waits until we understand Its LAWS.

Re:Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators

[MoFoQ]

well...the "Fear" of anything nuclear (it's funny how all those environmentalists bitch and moan about a few kilograms of uranium when many tons of it was released into the atmosphere due to coal power plants (ref: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ colmain.html [ornl.gov])

By the year 2040, the prediction/projected cumulative amounts released by coal burning plants is
U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 357,491 tons

Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons):
Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 2,039,709 tons

Anyways, back to the subject at hand, why can't we make the radioisotopes now in nuclear waste facilities (especially in the Yucca Mountain range in Nevada) produce energy using a RTG? It may not be the most efficient method but the stuff is just "sitting" there and can't be used in a traditional power generation method.

Just a thought. It might at least be able to power the lighting systems at those facilities.

Re:Batteries not included......

[Klintus Fang]

30 years without changing the batteries *AND* 30 years without exploding. Can I get one of those?

i know little about the specs of those generators, but somehow I suspect that you wouldn't find the current they are able to provide satisfactory... :-b

Wow! Is this thing still working? Fantastic!

[Uninstaller]

NASA sure used to build rugged, solid stuff!

URL to a photo?

[kimvette]

[...]The spacecraft are traveling at a distance where the sun is but a bright point of light[...]

Are there any photos of the sun from that distance? I've never seen photos looking back at the solar system from those spacecraft published. Even if it is only points of light, it'd be neat to see some photos from Voyager with the sun and visible planets highlighted to get some sense of scale of our tiny corner of the universe.