Taking a moment to experience a state of wonderment

On bonfire day this year, 41 years (roughly) after being launched, a man-made spacecraft travelling at 34,000 mph left the heliopause, the horizon of the Sun's magnetic field.

Voyager 2 is now 11 billion miles from where it was conceived of, made and launched and continues to send information home to us.

Along with Voyager 1, which is slightly ahead of it but can't communicate with us any more, it will orbit the centre of our galaxy for billions of years.

Despite travelling at 34,000mph (around 9.5 miles a second), it won't come near another star for 40,000 years.

Beautiful.

On bonfire day this year, 41 years (roughly) after being launched, a man-made spacecraft travelling at 34,000 mph left the heliopause, the horizon of the Sun's magnetic field.

 

Voyager 2 is now 11 billion miles from where it was conceived of, made and launched and continues to send information home to us.

 

Along with Voyager 1, which is slightly ahead of it but can't communicate with us any more, it will orbit the centre of our galaxy for billions of years.

 

Despite travelling at 34,000mph (around 9.5 miles a second), it won't come near another star for 40,000 years.

 

Beautiful.

But this is truly awesome.

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On bonfire day this year, 41 years (roughly) after being launched, a man-made spacecraft travelling at 34,000 mph left the heliopause, the horizon of the Sun's magnetic field.

 

Voyager 2 is now 11 billion miles from where it was conceived of, made and launched and continues to send information home to us.

 

Along with Voyager 1, which is slightly ahead of it but can't communicate with us any more, it will orbit the centre of our galaxy for billions of years.

 

Despite travelling at 34,000mph (around 9.5 miles a second), it won't come near another star for 40,000 years.

 

Beautiful.

The scale of just our Galaxy is so mind boggling - 300 billion stars - it would take Voyager about 2 million years to cross it. And yet there are probably more than 2 trillion galaxies (thanks wiki). Fascinating to think how many life forms are probably out there but even at the speed of light way too far away for us to ever come in contact.

Fascinating to think how many life forms are probably out there but even at the speed of light way too far away for us to ever come in contact.

How many may have evolved, developed, and died out before life even started on Earth. How many might not yet have had the 'spark' that triggers the whole process ? With the Universe it's not just the sheer scale of the thing measured in 3 dimensions, even geological timescales fade into insignificance when a million years is a mere tick of the clock.

On bonfire day this year, 41 years (roughly) after being launched, a man-made spacecraft travelling at 34,000 mph left the heliopause, the horizon of the Sun's magnetic field.

 

Voyager 2 is now 11 billion miles from where it was conceived of, made and launched and continues to send information home to us.

 

Along with Voyager 1, which is slightly ahead of it but can't communicate with us any more, it will orbit the centre of our galaxy for billions of years.

 

Despite travelling at 34,000mph (around 9.5 miles a second), it won't come near another star for 40,000 years.

 

Beautiful.

You are an insignificant speck of cheese on the creator's bell end.