The Little ship that could.

Voyager 1 Goes Where No Man-made Object Has Gone Before.

Image #1 Voyager 1 IMAGE BY JPL

On September 5th 1977 I was 22 years old, and the spacecraft Voyager 1 (Image #1) left Earth on its voyage to explore Saturn and Jupiter.  The ship photographed Jupiter from January until April 1979, then it moved on to explore Saturn.  In November 1980 the Radio Telescope flew by Saturn exploring the rings and moons of the planet, but it's trip had just begun.

The little ship that could, continued on it's mission, alone, without a specific goal. Traveling through the dark emptiness of space with no other goal than to keep going.  On a lonely night in February 1990, the Voyager 1 sent its last picture, a portrait of the solar system it has called home.  

Image # 2 Family Portrait

Twelve and a half years after leaving mother earth it sent us a picture of our little family of planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.  Little did the Voyager 1 spacecraft know that Pluto had been divorced from the family and demoted to a dwarf planet.  But the little ship just kept going on and on into unexplored space and sped towards the stars.

Years pass, the coldness is everywhere, no sunlight because our star is just a distant dot in the sky. it is now 36 years since the little ship left earth.  Almost 19 billion miles from home and entering into that area between the stars in the vastness of space called Interstellar space.

On September 12th 2013, Researchers confirmed Thursday (Sept. 12) that the spacecraft had has officially moved into interstellar space.  Farther than any man made object has ever gone.  Temperatures at minus 400 degrees fahrenheit with nothing in front of it but distant stars. (See Link "Pale Blue Dot 2" below)


Alone but not alone.  We have sent our hopes and dreams that other life forms traveling these great distances may find our little ship that could.  Onboard the little spacecraft that could we included a Golden Record.  A way to tell another civilization about our little planet in the depths of space. We are Spinning around our little point of light and heat, going on and on with little more goal than Voyager, to just keep going on.  But no, our goals are much higher.  As the astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist Carl Sagan noted" The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet."  We have moved beyond the limits of our solar system and into the space between the stars.

Pale Blue Dot 2: Voyager 1 Signal from Interstellar Space Seen from ... 5 days ago ... Voyager 1 is now officially in interstellar space, but doesn't mean NASA can't see the far-flung spacecraft. See a photo of NASA's Voyager 1 ... www.space.com/22787-voyager-1-signal-interstellar-space-photo.html