Four decades after they left Earth, humanity's farthest and longest-lived mission, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, are still calling home as they fly deeper into the space.
"A MISSION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING"
"In exploration terms, Voyager was and still is, to me and to so many, the Apollo 11 of space science. It's a mission that changed everything," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's deputy administrator, said Tuesday during a news conference on the mission.
The day marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1, which is drifting through interstellar space at about 38,000 miles (61,155 km) an hour, nearly 13 billion miles (21 billion km) from Earth.
On Sept. 5, 1977, Voyager 1 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, only a little over eight years after the blast-off of Apollo 11 in 1969.
Its sister craft, Voyager 2, which launched two weeks earlier, trails shortly behind, nearly 11 billion miles (17.7 billion km) from its starting point. Together, the two Voyager probes have vastly expanded our knowledge of what lies beyond Earth.
"It not only changed what we know, but how we think. It's about exploration of the unknown, and redefining what we can and cannot do as humans," Zurbuchen said.h As originally designed, the Voyagers were to conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings, and the larger moons of the two planets.
Since the twin-probe launches in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 have transmitted astounding views of the solar system back to Earth, giving scientists the first close-up looks of Jupiter and Saturn's planetary systems, plus Uranus and Neptune.
Now, 40 years later, the twin spacecraft are now far beyond the planets in the solar system and Voyager 1 is currently speeding through the space between stars.
Voyager 1 successfully flew by both the Jupiter and Saturn systems before continuing out into the farthest most reaches of our solar system. It has been observing the interplanetary medium throughout its journey, according to NASA.
"Voyager 1 launched second, but it is traveling the fastest. It's in interstellar space as of August 25th, 2012," said Suzann Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The researchers said they anticipate Voyager 2 reaching that boundary within the next few years.
MESSAGE IN BOTTLE TOSSED IN COSMIC OCEAN
Many renowned scientists now believe contacting extraterrestrials is not a good idea. Among them, Stephen Hawking recently warned that "meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus."
The theoretical physicist "has expressed a kind of sense like don't let them (other civilizations) know we are here," Ann Druyan, Creative Director of Voyager Interstellar Message, said, "but it's too late for that."
Both Voyager 1 and 2 famously carried with them the Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on our planet to extraterrestrials.
