Monday, June 18, 2012

Voyager Spacecraft at Edge of Solar System

Going where no probes have gone before.
NASA's two Voyager spacecrafts will soon be passing in to the cold dark of interstellar space.

They have been traveling away from us for over three decades but despite their age the Voyagers are still returning data to Earth. Now as they approach the very edge of the solar system and prepare to pass outside of the heliosphere, a stream of charged particles given off by the sun, the two spacecraft will be the first man-made objects to leave the solar system completely and head off in to interstellar space.

Both Voyager probes were launched in the 1970s to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment facilitating an ambitious trip to all four gas giants, one of the most significant and groundbreaking space missions ever undertaken.

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