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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.
The Voyagers' original goal was to tour
Jupiter and Saturn, and they sent back postcards of Jupiter's big red
spot and Saturn's glittery rings. They also beamed home a torrent of
discoveries: erupting volcanoes on the Jupiter moon Io; hints of an
ocean below the icy surface of Europa, another Jupiter moon; signs of
methane rain on the Saturn moon Titan.
Voyager 2 then journeyed to Uranus and Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to fly by these
two outer planets. Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to
catapult itself toward the edge of the solar system.
"Time after time, Voyager revealed unexpected - kind of counterintuitive -
results, which means we have a lot to learn," said Stone, Voyager's
chief scientist and a professor of physics at the California Institute
of Technology.
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35 years later, Voyager 1 is heading for the stars
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