Voyager 1 A NASA artist's rendition of a Voyager spacecraft The Voyager 1 spacecraft is an unmanned probe of the outer solar system. It is the most distant man-made object, still moving further away, and expected to keep on transmitting into the 2020s. It was originally planned as Mariner 11 of the Mariner program. It was launched on September 5, 1977 by NASA from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket, slightly after its sister craft, Voyager 2 (the two Voyager program spacecraft are identical). It has followed a trajectory along Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn Voyager 1 began photographing Jupiter in January 1979. Its closest approach to Jupiter was on March 5, 1979, at a distance of 349,000 kilometers (217,000 miles) from its center. It finished photographing the planet in April. The two Voyager spacecraft made a number of important discoveries about Jupiter and its satellites. The most surprising was the existence of sulfur volcanoes on Io, which had not been observed from the ground or by Pioneer 10 or 11. The spacecraft went on to visit Saturn. Voyager 1's Saturn flyby occurred in November 1980, with the closest approach on November 12 when it came within 124,000 kilometers (77,000 miles) of the planet's cloud-tops. The craft detected complex structures in Saturn's rings, and studied the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan. Its trajectory, designed to allow close study of Titan, took it out of the plane of the ecliptic, thus ending its planetary science mission. Heliopause As it heads for interstellar space, its instruments continue to study the solar system; Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists are using the plasma wave experiments aboard Voyager 1 and 2 to look for the heliopause. It was announced by NASA on Wednesday November 5, 2003 (that day Voyager 1 reached a distance of 90 AU from sun) that scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab believe that Voyager passed the termination shock in February 2003. However some other scientists have expressed doubt (discussed in the journal Nature of November 6). The issue will not be resolved for some months as other data becomes available, since Voyager's solar-wind detector ceased functioning in 1990. Distance Travelled In September 2004, Voyager 1 was at a distance of 14.0 billion kilometers (93.2 Astronomical Units, 8.7 billion miles or 8.55light-hours) from the Sun. This makes the spacecraft the most distant man-made object from Earth. Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 AU (19 light-minutes) per year (ca. 17 km/s). Golden Record This image shows the protective cover of Voyager's golden record. Voyager 1 carries with it a golden record (Voyager Golden Record) that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan. See also Voyager program for more information about this spacecraft. External links NASA Voyager website Voyager Spacecraft Lifetime Spacecraft Escaping the Solar System - current positions and diagrams Most Popular Articles: Music    Musical Instruments    Guitar    Classical Music    History    Music Definition    Country Music    Rock Music    Pop Music    Hip Hop    Rap    DJ    Video Games    Casino Games    Poker    Blackjack    Casinos    Real Estate    Loan    Auction    eBay    Marketing    Search Engine Optimization    File Sharing    MP3    Music Industry    Kazaa    Internet    Supermodel    Fashion    Fashion Designers    Erotica    Modeling    Clothing    Boots    Shoes    Diamond Engagement Rings    Diamond    Rugs    Gospel Music    Affiliate    E-Commerce    Radio This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1