Voyager on the Verge

They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Talk about the final frontier.

Tomorrow marks the 35th anniversary of the launch of the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Launched in 1977, along with its twin, Voyager 2, this venerable, nuclear-powered spacecraft is over 11 billion miles away and on the verge of crossing out of our solar system and into true interstellar space:

When NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth's grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.

Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.

Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way — the space between stars.

I remember, as a kid, the early flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, and later Uranus and Neptune (Voyager 2). That both spacecraft are just now at the far reaches of the solar system, after all of these years, just brings to bear the expanse that is our corner of the galaxy.

Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager 2, which celebrated its launch anniversary two weeks ago, trails behind at 9 billion miles from the sun.

They're still ticking despite being relics of the early Space Age.

Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod — an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano — is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder. Today's spacecraft use digital memory.

68kb of memory. That is almost unbelievable. And an 8-track! Voyager is still sending us data today.

Who knows how long it will last, or how far it will go, or what it will find out there.

Or even, who will find it!