The space probe Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 on a three-year mission to explore the outer planets of the solar system. The spacecraft was not expected to remain functional for more than five years maximum. Yet Voyager traveled on, and has been relaying data to earth for more than 46 years. It is now in interstellar space, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from earth.
But as amazing as Voyager's performance has been, nothing lasts forever. The space probe has been glitching for the past two years, and NASA is having a hard time pinpointing the problem. For one thing, it takes 22 hours for signals to reach the probe, and just as long for data to be sent back. For another, the probe is running on computer programming from 1977, and NASA has very few surviving engineers familiar with it.
So Voyager may be on its last legs, even as it continues its eternal trajectory away from earth. The achievements of the probe have been so numerous you could read about it for days (see Wikipedia). But to get an overall sense of what Voyager 1's 46 years of service really means, you can read an almost poetic tribute to the little probe that could at Crooked Timber. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: NASA/JPL)
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The phrase "eternal trajectory away from earth" is not quite accurate. Voyager could crash into something eventually, or it could be snagged into the gravitational pull of another system, and become a satellite of an exoplanet. Imagine it being found by a future alien civilization millions of years from now, long after we are gone.
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