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Voyager 1 Out Of Solar System

Graham Clark |
September 12, 2013 | 10:03 p.m. PDT

Editor-At-Large

An illustration of the Voyager in its new locale. (via NASA)
An illustration of the Voyager in its new locale. (via NASA)
A half ton of circa-1977 technology has boldly gone where no manmade matter has ever gone before.

On September 12, the Voyager 1 spacecraft exited the Earth’s solar system and breached interstellar space. As most recently announced, it’s travelled roughly 12 billion miles since its launch on our planet.

Voyager’s trajectory is monitored by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Suzanne Dodd, who is the project manager there, said she expects to glean useful information from Voyager 1 for another 17 years.

“We can't wait to see what the Voyager instruments show us next about deep space," Dodd said.

SEE ALSO: Neon Tommy's Full Science And Tech Coverage

The probe, alongside the nearly identical Voyager 2, holds a special place in the history of space exploration. Not only do the crafts serve as data collection devices, they were intended to represent human existence in a way that non-earthbound life forms might comprehend. To that end, each Voyager was loaded with a gold-plated record, inscribed with audio recordings and other means of signifying intelligent life.

Sharing space on the record are inscriptions of the Pythagorean theorem, simplified diagrams of human anatomy and snippets of whale song are a smattering of jams the Voyager’s designers considered emblematic of human existence. Among the out-of-this-world tunes scientists including Carl Sagan picked for the journey are those below:

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