From WiredNews:
NASA's Voyager 1, built to last just five years to probe Earth's planetary neighbors, has reached the solar system's final frontier and may have surfed into interstellar space, more than 26 years after its launch.
It turns out that it depends on whose definition of "interstellar space" you use to determine whether the distinguished craft has actually made it across this threshhold. From the article, I infer that the probe really has made it out of the heliosphere, but that there are other objects farther out that might still be considered part of the solar system. This must have to do with Voyager's plane of departure.
But in any event,Voyager I has traveled more than 90 AUs; that is, more than 90 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. It is the most far-flung object in human history, and promises to hold that record for a while.
Posted by Phil at November 6, 2003 10:57 AM | TrackBack