Voyager 1 has crossed a new frontier, becoming the first spacecraft ever to leave the solar system, NASA said.
Thirty-six years after it was launched from Earth on a tour of the outer planets, the plutonium-powered probe is more than 18.51 billion kilometers from the sun, cruising through interstellar space — the vast, cold emptiness between the stars, the space agency said on Thursday.
Voyager 1 actually made its exit more than a year ago, according to NASA. However, it is not as if there’s a dotted boundary line or a signpost out there, and it was not until recently that scientists with the space agency had enough evidence to say that the probe had finally plowed through the hot plasma bubble surrounding the planets and escaped the sun’s influence.
While some scientists remain unconvinced, NASA celebrated with a news conference featuring the theme from Star Trek.
“We got there,” said mission chief scientist Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology, adding that the spacecraft was “setting sail in the cosmic seas between the stars.”
While Voyager 1 may have left the solar system as most people understand it, it still has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to go before bidding adieu to the last icy bodies that make up our neighborhood.
Voyager 1 will now study exotic particles and other phenomena in a never-before-explored part of the universe littered with ancient star explosions and radio the data back to Earth, where the Voyager team awaits the starship’s discoveries.
Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977.
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