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Voyager (Jet Propulsion Lab via AP, File)

Nasa's Voyager 2 has become the second human-made object to fly away from the sun into the space between the stars.

Voyager 2 last month exited "this bubble that the sun creates around itself", Nasa mission scientist Ed Stone said.

LIVE NOW: @NASAVoyager 2 launched before its twin in 1977, but followed a longer path away from Earth. Along the way, Voyager 2 has been providing scientists with unprecedented observations of the space it's traveling through. Get the latest now: https://t.co/nDQWMi7HMS #AGU18 pic.twitter.com/Hw8T1KHEaY
- NASA (@NASA) December 10, 2018

The spacecraft is beyond the outer boundary of the heliosphere, 11 billion miles from Earth.

It is trailing twin Voyager 1, which reached interstellar space in 2012 and is 13 billion miles from Earth. Interstellar space is the vast emptiness between star systems.

Even though they are out of the sun's bubble, the Voyagers are still technically in our solar system, Nasa said.

Scientists maintain the solar system stretches to the outer edge of the so-called Oort Cloud. It will take about 30,000 years for the spacecraft to get that far.

With today's @NASAVoyager 2 news, you might be wondering: just where is the edge of our celestial neighborhood? This illustrated introduction to our solar system shows that it all depends on how you look at it. Watch: https://t.co/esDg8rndVM pic.twitter.com/Oxib28FWP9
- NASA (@NASA) December 10, 2018

Scientists know that Voyager 2 has left the sun's influence because of four different instruments measuring solar particles and different types of rays.

They showed a dramatic change on November 5, indicating the spacecraft was between the stars.

One of the instruments measures solar plasma and this is the first time Nasa has seen a drop in that key instrument. The same instrument was not working on Voyager 1.

The twin Voyagers launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 1977, and zipped by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The @NASAVoyager 2 probe no longer feels the solar wind & is flying through the interstellar space between the stars. It carries a working instrument providing 1st-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway. Here's a look by the numbers: https://t.co/DuNBYPaXQj #AGU18 pic.twitter.com/GJGIgDpSHD
- NASA (@NASA) December 10, 2018

Voyager 2 has already logged more than 18.5 billion miles on its interstellar trip going 34,191mph.

"Both spacecrafts are very healthy if you consider them senior citizens," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd said.

She said the probes should last at least five, maybe 10 more years, but the cold - the temperature outside the vehicles is about minus 45C - and waning power supply will eventually end their usefulness.

They will keep travelling and in 40,000 years or so they will get close to the next stars, or the stars, which are moving faster, will get close to them, Mr Stone said.

Press Association

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Voyager 2 becomes second craft in interstellar space - Independent.ie

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Nasa's Voyager 2 has become the second human-made object to fly away from the sun into the space between the stars. Voyager 2 last month exited "this bubble that the sun creates around itself", Nasa mission scientist Ed Stone said. LIVE NOW: @NASAVoyager 2 launched before its twin in 1977, but followed a longer path away from Earth.

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Germany launches world's first hydrogen-powered train

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Two trains built by the French train maker Alstom are now operating on a 62 mile stretch of line in northern Germany

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Saturn is losing its rings at the 'worst-case scenario' rate

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The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.

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(Image: Reuters)

From a young age we're taught about the eight planets in the solar system, but it seems that a Bishop in Cyprus has very different ideas.

Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki claims that Earth is the only planet, not only in the solar system, but in the entire universe.

While this may sound far-fetched, Bishop Anthimos says that a 'formidable scientist' told him this theory.

However, the name of the 'scientist' remains unclear.

Worryingly, Bishop Anthimos' claims have been accepted by at least one school in Cyprus.

Did you know...

The school, which again, is unnamed, is said to now be teaching children that Earth is the only planet in the universe.

Read More

Conspiracy theories

According to Cyprus Mail, a theologian at this school, said that 'bishops were the representatives of God on Earth and whatever they said was wise and holy.'

This raises concerns of how religion is taught in schools.

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Bishop claims that Earth is the only planet in the entire universe

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From a young age we're taught about the eight planets in the solar system, but it seems that a Bishop in Cyprus has very different ideas. Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki claims that Earth is the only planet, not only in the solar system, but in the entire universe.

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There has been much gnashing of teeth in the science-journalism community this week, with the release of an infographic that claims to rate the best and worst sites for scientific news. According to the American Council on Science and Health, which helped to prepare the ranking, the field is in a shoddy state. "If journalism as a whole is bad (and it is)," says the council, "science journalism is even worse. Not only is it susceptible to the same sorts of biases that afflict regular journalism, but it is uniquely vulnerable to outrageous sensationalism".

News aggregator RealClearScience, which also worked on the analysis, goes further: "Much of science reporting is a morass of ideologically driven junk science, hyped research, or thick, technical jargon that almost no one can understand".

How - without bias or outrageous sensationalism, of course - do they judge the newspapers and magazines that emerge from this sludge? Simple: they rank each by how evidence-based and compelling they subjectively judge its content to be. Modesty (almost) prevents us from naming the publication graded highest on both (okay, it's Nature), but some names are lower than they would like. Big hitters including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian score relatively poorly.

It's a curious exercise, and one that fails to satisfy on any level. It is, of course, flattering to be judged as producing compelling content. But one audience's compelling is another's snoozefest, so it seems strikingly unfair to directly compare publications that serve readers with such different interests as, say, The Economist and Chemistry World. It is equally unfair to damn all who work on a publication because of some stories that do not meet the grade. (This is especially pertinent now that online offerings spread the brand and the content so much thinner.)

The judges' criterion of evidence-based news is arguably problematic, as well. Many journalists could reasonably point to the reproducibility crisis in some scientific fields and ask - as funders and critics are increasingly asking - just how reliable some of that evidence truly is. Mainstream science reporters have typically taken peer review as an official stamp of approval from the research community that a published finding is sufficiently robust to share with their readers. Yet this kind of evidence-based reporting is only as reliable as the evidence it reports on. And many scientists would complain (even if only among themselves) that some published studies, especially those that draw press attention, are themselves vulnerable to bias and sensationalism.

This is one reason why the rise of the scientist (and non-scientist) as blogger, along with other forms of post-publication review, has been so valuable. Many scientists know about the problems with some fields of research. Many journalists do, too - articles on questionable practices from statistical fishing to under-powered studies are an increasing presence in most of the publications in the infographic. The relationship between science and media reporting is far from simple, and both sides should remember this.

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Science journalism can be evidence-based, compelling - and wrong

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There has been much gnashing of teeth in the science-journalism community this week, with the release of an infographic that claims to rate the best and worst sites for scientific news. According to the American Council on Science and Health, which helped to prepare the ranking, the field is in a shoddy state.