The Voyager 1

Hello internet. Today I'm going to be talking about the farthest manmade object from Earth, the Voyager 1.

The Voyager 1

The Voyager 1 is a space probe that weighs 721.9 kg (1,592 lb.) whose mission, originally, was to do a flyby of Jupiter and Saturn, for taking pictures and studying the Jovian system (Jupiter's moon system) and studying Saturn's moon system.

All of this was completed within a short time. NASA then realized that they could extend the mission because the probe still had power. NASA decided to make another probe, Voyager 2, to study Uranus and Neptune, while Voyager was given the objective to go to interstellar space and study there.

Even though the probe is pretty old (roughly 35 years since 2013), it still has been receiving and transmitting data, because six out of its eleven instruments are still running.

As of September 2012, the Voyager traveled roughly 121 AU (astronomical units), and is moving with a rate of about 3 AU per year. An "AU" is the exact distance how far the Earth is from the Sun. This means that the Voyager 1 has traveled about 11 billion miles from Earth. You may think that that's a very long distance, but no. To compare, the closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.2 light years. With the velocity of the Voyager and the distance traveled, we can calculate that at this rate, it'll take at least 77,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

However, in the case where we find extraterrestrial life (alien life), the Voyager has a little hidden thing in it. It's known as the Golden Record. It contains a lot of information about the human race, and contains songs and sounds that humans make. They (NASA) put variety of natural sounds, such as the ocean, birds chirping, whales humming, etc. Hopefully, the aliens can send signals back, making us know about them.

The probe is powered by the natural decay of plutonium-238, which will keep its thrusters running for a long time. However, the Voyager is losing about 4 watts per year at a steady rate. That means that the probe's thrusters and instruments will eventually stop at around 2025. At that time, communications with the probe will stop, and all of it's remaining instruments will be disabled. The Voyager will then be a floating beacon in the void of interstellar space.

Interesting fact of the day: If you jumped off a 5 ft. ledge on a neutron star, your speed will be around 4 million mph because of its gravity.