It should take another 300 years for NASA’s Voyager 1 probe to reach the last region of our solar system. Until then he sinks through the void between the stars.

• Voyagers 1 and 2 explore a mysterious region between the stars called interstellar space.

• NASA sent the twin probes in 1977 on a five-year mission to travel through the solar system.

• Voyager 1 should take 40,000 years to reach another star, according to the space agency.

Part of 14.8 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 is exploring the blackness of the interstellar medium — the unexplored space between the stars. The most remote human-made object from our planet.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 joined within 16 days of each other in 1977 on a five-year mission to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their nearest moons.

Now 45 years into their mission, each has made history by daring to venture beyond the end of our sun’s grace, which is called the heliopause.

Both spacecraft continue to send data back beyond the solar system — and their cosmic journeys are far from over.

In 300 years, Voyager 1 could see the Oort Cloud, and in 296,000 years Voyager 2 could pass by Sirius.

As part of ongoing force management efforts in recent years, engineers have been able to leverage non-technical systems into technical scouting boards, such as hot science tools, hoping to hold onto them through 2003.

After this, the probes will likely lose the ability to communicate with Earth.

Even if NASA shuts down its instruments and calls the Voyager mission to an end, the twin probes will be lost in interstellar space.

NASA said that about 300 years from now, Voyager 1 will enter the Oort Cloud, a hypothetical spherical band full of billions of frozen comets. It must take another 30,000 years to reach the end.

The ships take different routes as they launch into deep space. Voyager 2 is only about 12.3 billion miles away from Earth today.

Voyager 1 should examine about 40,000 years ago AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation Camelopardus, according to NASA.

The story continues

The agency added that in some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 would pass by Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

“Voyagers are destined – perhaps forever – to roam the Milky Way,” NASA said.

‘It’s really amazing that both spaces are still working’

NASA has designed a spacecraft to study the outer solar system. Voyagers caught up after their first mission, taking a grand tour of our solar system and capturing a stunning cosmic view.

On February 14, 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft photographed the “Pale Blue Dot” from about 4 miles away. It is the iconic image of the Earth in the scattered rays of the sun, and it is the last sight of the Earth captured by any ship.

For the last decade, Voyager 1 has explored interstellar space, which is full of gas, dust, and charged energetic particles. Voyager 2 reached interstellar space in 2018, six years after its twin.

Their observations of interstellar gas moving through astronomers changed our understanding of this unexplored space beyond our own cosmic backyard.

“It’s really amazing that both spacecraft are still working and working — little glitches, but they’re working extremely well and they’re still sending back this valuable data,” Suzanne Dodd, Voyager mission project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, previously told Insider, adding: They’re still talking to us. .

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