Voyager I

Day 337 / 365

Do you know what’s the most distant man-made object in space? It’s Voyager 1, A space probe launched by Nasa in 1977. As of now, it is about 22 Billion Kms away from us. But the most fascinating part is that it is still communicating and receiving commands from Earth!

It’s fascinating that a piece of equipment made 43 years ago is still functioning as expected, even after traveling through billions of km in space at a speed of 17kms per second. Not only that, it has sent us pictures from other planets in our solar system, including a timelapse video of its approach to Jupiter.

This space probe also holds the distinction of taking the first “family portrait” of our solar system. On February 14th, 1990, Voyager 1 was far away from us to take a picture with all the planets in our solar system. This picture included a frame that had the earth from 6 billion Kms away, as a pale blue dot almost the size of a pixel.

Can you see the earth in this picture?

Unfortunately, The Voyager won’t be functioning forever. After 2025, the voyager will no longer have enough power supply to power the electronic equipment on it.

The Voyager also has the Golden Record on it. It is a disc that carries audio and images of life on earth, meant for aliens to find it.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Cosmic Crisp — The new apple on the market