The spacecraft was launched 40 years ago and has already left the Solar system.
Automatic interplanetary station NASA “Voyager 1” weight 723 kg was launched into space on 5 September 1977, and since then became the first unit sent beyond the Solar system. The project was approved in 1972. In 40 years of flight the device is moving away from Earth at almost 20 billion km in 1998, is one of the furthest from Earth of an artificial object. Initially, the station was designed to study Jupiter and Saturn — “Voyager-1” was the first machine, which made detailed images of the satellites of these planets. The maximum convergence station with Jupiter took place on 6 June 1979. The first camera captured the eruption of a volcano on the surface of Jupiter’s moon IO. In November 1980, “Voyager 1” maximum closer to Saturn and flew past him at a height of 124 thousand km.
In September 2013, NASA officially announced that “Voyager-1” has finally left the Solar system and became the first in the history of the unit published beyond. For a location of Voyager can be monitored in real time on the NASA website. The case of “Voyager-1” attached to the plate with a message about the diversity of human culture to alien beings. On it, in particular, recorded greetings in 55 languages, a series of images (pictures of Earth and people) and sounds (classical music and nature sounds). Also on the disc shows the location of Earth and the Solar system relative to 14 pulsars and powerful caused to the scheme of radiation of the hydrogen atom.
In the series Voyager was launched a little earlier, on 20 August 1977. He is the first and only device that have reached Uranus (in January 1986) and Neptune (in August 1989). In total with both spacecraft were transmitted to Earth 625 GB of data. According to the latest data, “Voyager 1” departed 20.8 billion km from Earth and 20.9 billion km from the Sun. According to scientists, the reserves of fuel (the energy it receives from radioisotope generators, which run on plutonium-238), will allow devices of Voyager to remain operable for another ten years. Then communication with Earth will be lost.
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