NASA spacecraft embarks on historic journey into interstellar
space  Posted by TG Daily Staff  NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft
officially is the first human-made object to venture into
interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion
miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected
data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year
through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between
stars.     Voyager 1 does not have a working plasma sensor, so
scientists needed a different way to measure the spacecraft's
plasma environment to make a definitive determination of its
location. A coronal mass ejection, or a massive burst of solar
wind and magnetic fields, that erupted from the sun in March
2012 provided scientists the data they needed.  When this
unexpected gift from the sun eventually arrived at Voyager 1's
location 13 months later, in April 2013, the plasma around the
spacecraft began to vibrate like a violin string. On April 9,
Voyager 1's plasma wave instrument dete