Thursday, September 13, 2007

30 Years of Voyager

Imagine being billions of miles from home, alone in a silent black void. With a voice too weak to be heard, and your mind and body slowly growing numb. Imagine not having the ability to stop, to turn, to look anywhere but ahead, knowing that no one had ever been where you are, and that you will never see your home again. That is the story of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They have incredible stories, and they're 30 years old this month, and they're still giving weekly status reports, even though they'll run out of power soon, and we're losing the ability to hear them.

"Voyager 1 was launched Sept. 5, 1977 atop a Titan rocket with a Centaur-6 upper stage. Still operational for 30 years, Voyager 1 is more than 103.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. Astronomers believe it has now entered the solar system's heliosheath -- the termination shock region between the sun's solar wind and interstellar space. Signals from Voyager 1 take 13 hours to reach Earth, traveling at the speed of light." Wired has a few of the photos that Voyager has taken on its mission.

The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. (Listen to it here)

1 comment:

Darth Curt said...

Personally I think the Golden Record is rather dangerous. What if it's misinterpreted, and we start an interstellar war! Of course by the time it gets there will have phasors and have already PASSED Voyager on the way to another star system, and we can blow it up. No worries.