10 Facts about Voyager 1

10 Facts about Voyager 1:

1. Voyager 1 Has Been Traveling for 35 Years
Launched in 1977, September 5 will mark the 36th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch. That makes it one of the oldest pieces of space technology that is still in contact with Earth.


2. V1 Has Traversed Over 11 BILLION Miles
To put this number in perspective, 11 billion miles is the equivalent of circling the Earth 440,000 times. And yet, in terms of light-years, the unit to measure space that is marked by how far light can travel in a year, V1 hasn't even left the neighbourhood. It will take 40,000 years for V1 to reach only two light-years distance from the sun. As large as 11 billion is, space is infinitely bigger.


3. V1 is Traveling At 39,000 mph
This speed makes it the fastest space technology we have right now. Even spacecraft that have been launched years later with better technology is slower than V1.


4. It Was Originally Only Supposed to Survey Jupiter
The original intention of V1 and its sister ship Voyager 2 was to investigate Jupiter and Saturn up-close for the first time during a specific time frame when the planets were close together. The mission was a huge success, allowing scientists to learn the makeup of the planets and giving the rest of us gorgeous photos to admire.


5. It's Powered By Plutonium
Though V1's longevity could not have been predicted, scientists did plan for it. When building the spacecraft, they used long-lasting plutonium batteries for fuel, and those batteries are still going strong today. While travelling, V1 has turned off everything but its essential functions, and at this rate, the batteries should last throughout the 2020s. 


6. v1 Can Communicate Through Radio Waves No Matter How Far It Goes
Its satellites were only supposed to last five years, but NASA is maintaining contact with V1 through the use of radio waves, a system that should be viable well beyond the stretches of our solar system. The only real problem is that it takes 16 hours for the radio waves to reach Earth, a number that is continuously increasing as V1 gets farther and farther away.


7. No One Is Quite Sure Of Where Exactly It is Right Now.


8. It Carries a Message to Alien Life
V1 carries an audio-visual recording in the form of a gold-plated record that is meant to be both a message to intelligent life and a symbolic time capsule. The record has greetings in over 55 languages, pictures of Earth's life forms, various scientific knowledge, and recordings of pieces of music and earth sound, like the sound of waves crashing on the shore.


9. It Will Outlive Earth
Eons after humans have gone extinct and well after the sun expands to swallow Earth entirely, V1 will still be traversing the universe, silently charting entirely unknown territories.


10. Voyager 1 has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system, where the outward motion of solar wind ceases. The event is the latest milestone in Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, before entering interstellar space. Interstellar space begins at the heliopause, and scientists estimate Voyager 1 will cross this frontier within the next five years.

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