Am I the only one that is just completely amazed that the Voyagers are still going strong? “NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the solar system’s final frontier, a vast, turbulent expanse where the Sun’s influence ends and the solar wind crashes into the thin gas between stars.” That’s really crazy. Voyager I is about 8.7 billion miles from the sun.
This part is insane:
“For their original missions to Jupiter and Saturn, the Voyagers were destined for regions of space far from the Sun, so each was equipped with three radioisotope thermoelectric generators to produce electrical power for the spacecraft systems and instruments. Still operating in remote, cold and dark conditions 27 years later, the Voyagers could last until 2020.”
I can’t get a cell phone with a battery that lasts more than a year, and twenty-something years ago NASA was making batteries that don’t even need THE SUN to charge them?!
