Friday 28 June 2013

Voyager-1 Has Left The Solar System

It has taken 35 years and over 11 billion miles but the Voyager-1 spacecraft is set to leave our Solar System and become the first man-made object to leave our stars domain. 
Using the technology of 1977, Voyager is on course for a star called Gliese 445 but as that trip is another 40,000 years at the present speed of 38,609 mph and Voyagers plutonium batteries are only expected to last for another decade, it probably won't be able to let us know in 42013 if it made it there.
For some reason there doesn't seem to much excitement about Voyager-1 leaving our solar system despite it being a magnificent achievement of the human race.
The Voyager space probe carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event that either spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from other planetary systems. The discs carry photos of the Earth and its lifeforms, a range of scientific information, and a collection of Earth sounds including a baby crying and Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.
Kudos to the scientist who decided to include that particular song to showcase us humans to our alien cousins, excellent choice Sir.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a little surprised that you didn't see voyager as humans polluting deep space. Kinda like a big aluminum can tossed out the window...

Q

Lucy said...

I am guessing that it will just keep going and at some point it will burnt up by a star somewhere. Nice angle though, polluting other solar systems.