On this day · archive
Voyager crosses; the signal arrives later
In 2013, NASA confirmed that Voyager 1 had become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space. The crossing had happened a year earlier; certainty arrived later, carried home in measurements of the thin matter around the spacecraft.
8
events in todayish file
2013
NASA confirms that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space.
There was no visible gate at the edge of the Sun's domain. Scientists had to recognize the frontier by reading what changed around a distant machine.
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space on August 25, 2012, but the boundary did not offer a photograph or a ceremonial marker. The probe had passed beyond the heliopause, where the solar wind gives way to the environment between stars, before scientists could say so with confidence.
The spacecraft's plasma instrument had stopped working decades earlier, removing one expected way to identify the crossing. Confirmation came from a different instrument: plasma-wave measurements revealed the denser material surrounding Voyager beyond the Sun's protective bubble.
NASA's September 2013 announcement turned an invisible change into a human milestone. The achievement belonged not only to distance, but to interpretation — a machine sending back slight variations from the dark, and scientists learning how to read them as a border crossed.
The full record
8 entries from the day’s archive, filed year by year with a note on what each one leaves behind.
Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51 crashes short of the runway at Kazachinskoye Airport, killing four people.
The regional flight ended just before landing, leaving four dead and survivors at the edge of the airport.
Aviation
A guesthouse at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos collapses, killing 115 people and injuring others.
The collapse brought international scrutiny to a religious complex visited by pilgrims from across Africa and beyond.
Disaster
NASA confirms that Voyager 1 has become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space.
Measurements of surrounding plasma settled a question left open when the probe crossed the heliopause in 2012.
Space
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Flight 251 crashes on approach to Palana Airport, killing 10 people and injuring four.
The crash in mountainous terrain killed 10 people, injured four, and left a remote community facing the loss of a regional flight.
Aviation
Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada is convicted of plunder.
The verdict made a former head of state answer in court to charges of large-scale corruption.
Law
Israel completes its disengagement from Gaza, with about 2,530 homes demolished.
The withdrawal removed Israeli settlers and permanent military presence while leaving Gaza's larger conflict unresolved.
Conflict
NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51.
Discovery carried a communications satellite and a technology mission into orbit during the shuttle era.
Space
Peruvian special forces capture Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path.
His arrest dealt a decisive blow to the insurgent group's leadership after years of violence in Peru.
Conflict