Almost 1 billion years from this
moment, the sun will enter in its dying phase and blow off its outer
atmosphere, eating our minute planet in hot plasma. Fortunately, our galaxy
will be left with NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft to remember us as a sign of
existence of humans.
The two nuclear-powered spacecraft
started their mission 40 years ago and became the first and only machines to
take close-up photos of Uranus and Neptune, the planets' moons and rings, and some
other objects in the outer solar system.
The Voyagers are also
carrying a golden record of sounds, images, and other info about existence of life
on Earth — a simple human collection that aliens might one day discover and
decode.
The mission is now comprehensive
in an extraordinary PBS documentary called "The Farthest", which
premiered on August 23 and re-aired on September 13 at 10 p.m. ET.
Brad Smith, a Voyager
imaging scientist, said in the movie "Fifty years from now, Voyager will
be the science project of the 20th century,"
Here's why many scientists
and engineers not only hail Voyager as the farthest, fastest, and longest-lived
space mission, but also one of humanity's greatest endeavors.
