Does the New Shape of the Solar System Prove Vernor Vinge is Right About the Galaxy?

By now you ’ve in all likelihood heard the tidings about our solar system not quite being the shape that everybody think . A bailiwick in Nature today express upshot gather from the two Voyager distance probes plunge in the 1970s , which are both go up the bound of the heliosphere , the region where the solar steer stop and deep blank space get . Based on data the probe beamed back , it would seem that the heliosphere is n’t a sector – it ’s more of an testicle shape ( pictured ) . And the bound between heliosphere and deep quad is shifting all the time . It sounds very similar to the fashion scifi source Vernor Vinge distinguish the Milky Way ’s galactic firmament in A Fire Upon the Deep . If Vinge is right about what hap when you leave a gravitational welkin for cryptical space , the Voyager probe are in for an interesting ride .

Vinge describes the galaxy in term of “ zones of cerebration . ” Near the center of the astronomic core are “ the unthinking depths , ” where spaceship must use parallel technology and travel is very dumb . In the “ slow zone , ” which includes Earth and most of the galactic disk , FTL does n’t work , nanotech is crude , and mind - machine interfaces are impossible . Then there is the Beyond , an egg - determine bulk vertical to the astronomic disc that functions like the galaxy ’s heliosphere . There , FTL is possible ( though expensive ) , AI and nanotech work , and human - machine interface are quotidian engineering science . Most creatures experience in the Beyond , because the tech is so much near there . Yet another region , basically the cryptical blank beyond the astronomical sphere , is called the Transcend . There FTL is cheap , and tech works even better .

evidently Vinge was partly produce a sort of sociological landscape painting with his imagining of these astronomic sphere of influence – each correspond to a stage or potential stage in human development . But I have always wondered whether there might be a texture of truth in there . Could it be that when the Voyager probes finally travel beyond the heliosphere ( in about 10 years ) , scientists will get data back showing that Voyager is suddenly able to travel faster using the same amount of energy ? Or perhaps other physical constants will pitch ?

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