The Eternal journey of Voyagers into the Space

If you have seen Interstellar, chances are really high that you must have liked it. But have you ever paused and focused on the word Interstellar itself?
It means travelling between two or more different star systems.

Our solar system is also a star system. In Interstellar, Cooper travels through a wormhole and reaches another star system. In other words, he travelled interstellar.
Yes, it was just a movie. Umm not just a movie for me personally but nvm.

But here is the part that still blows my mind. Humans have actually made two real spacecraft that travelled interstellar for real. Not CGI, not fiction, not theory.
Two tiny machines built by human hands have left the Sun behind and are now drifting in the emptiness between the stars.

I genuinely envy them.

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Meet Voyager 1 and Voyager 2

The two silent explorers who left home in 1977 and never returned.

NASA launched Voyager 2 first on August 20, 1977
Then launched Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977

Yes, Voyager 2 was launched earlier but Voyager 1 was faster and eventually overtook it.

Both spacecrafts were built to last only 5 years.
It is 2025 and they are still travelling in deep space, still alive, still sending whispers of data across billions of kilometers.

Why Were They Built?

Voyagers were designed to take advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets that happens once every 176 years.

This alignment allowed one spacecraft to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune using a brilliant trick called gravity assist.

It is basically using a planet's gravity like a slingshot to gain speed.

Voyager 1 visited:

• Jupiter

• Saturn

• Titan (Saturn’s moon)

Voyager 2 visited:

• Jupiter

• Saturn

• Uranus

• Neptune
  It remains the only spacecraft in human history to visit Uranus and Neptune.

The Moment They Became Truly Interstellar

This picture shows the positions of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes outside the heliosphere, the region surrounding our star, beyond which interstellar space begins.

For decades, both spacecraft moved farther and farther from the Sun.
Then something historic happened.

What is the Pale Blue Dot?

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft.

Voyager 1 was speeding out of the solar system — beyond Neptune and about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun — when mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time. It snapped a series of 60 images that were used to create the first “family portrait” of our solar system.

The picture that would become known as the Pale Blue Dot shows Earth within a scattered ray of sunlight. Voyager 1 was so far away that from its vantage point Earth was just a point of light about a pixel in size.

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in 2018

Picture Taken by Voyager 2

Six years after its twin.

Right now, Voyager 1 is the farthest human made object in the universe.
More distant than any spacecraft, probe or telescope ever launched.

And they continue to glide forward, deeper and deeper into the unknown.

Their Messages To Aliens: The Golden Record

Both Voyagers carry something special.
A golden disc made of copper, coated in gold.
It contains:

• Sounds of Earth

• Music from across cultures

• Greetings in 55 languages

• Whale songs

• A mother kissing her baby

• A heartbeat

And a message that says
"This is who we were."

If some intelligent being ever finds it, they will hear our planet’s story long after we are gone.

How Far Are They Now

By the time you are reading this:

Voyager 1
is more than 24 billion km from Earth.

Voyager 2
is more than 20 billion km away.

Their signals take more than
22 hours (Voyager 1)
and
18 hours (Voyager 2)
to reach Earth at the speed of light.

Imagine sending a hello and getting a reply almost two days later.

What Are They Doing Now

They are not taking pictures anymore because there is nothing to see in interstellar space.
Just darkness and particles.

They are measuring the density of space, magnetic fields and cosmic radiation.
Every small piece of data is a treasure because no spacecraft has ever been where they are.

Their power is slowly fading.
Maybe in the next few years, we will stop hearing their voice.
But they will continue to travel.
Silently. Forever

The Part I Love The Most

Both Voyagers have enough momentum to keep travelling for billions of years.
Even after Earth is gone.
Even after the Sun dies.
Even after our solar system becomes a cold memory.

They will still be moving.
Drifting between stars.
Carrying the story of mankind.

A Final Thought

What a poster

We humans built many things.
But Voyager 1 and 2 are different.
Our letter to the universe.
Our proof that curiosity makes us extraordinary.

As Cooper also said in Interstellar - “We have always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible.”

And trust me, you will LOVE Interstellar if you haven’t watched it yet.