![\"Voyager\"](\"http:\/\/secretsoftheearth.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/02\/fg06_15.jpg?w=497&h=341\")
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When Voyager I was launched in 1977 to study and photograph the giant outer planets of the Solar System,\u00a0the robot ship was expected to survive just four years. However, like the battery advertising icon, the\u00a0Energizer Bunny, the little spacecraft kept on going.\u00a0For 25 years, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft led the way outbound, pressing the frontiers of exploration, but in\u00a01998 the baton was passed from Pioneer 10 to Voyager 1, according to NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory\u00a0(JPL), Pasadena, California.<\/p>\n
The twins, Voyager 1 and 2, opened new vistas for the\u00a0human race by expanding our knowledge of Jupiter and\u00a0Saturn. Voyager 2 then extended our great planetary\u00a0adventure when it flew by Uranus and Neptune, becoming\u00a0the only spacecraft ever to visit these worlds. (None has ever\u00a0visited Pluto.)<\/p>\n
Voyager 1, now the most distant human-made object in the\u00a0Universe, and Voyager 2, close on its heels, continue their\u00a0ground-breaking journey with their current mission to study\u00a0the region in space where the Sun\u2019s influence ends and the\u00a0dark recesses of interstellar space begin.<\/p>\n
Voyager 1 is almost 70 times farther from the Sun than the\u00a0Earth. Out there, the Sun is only 1\/5,000th as bright as here\u00a0on Earth. It is extremely cold, and there is little solar energy\u00a0to keep the probe warm and to provide electrical power.<\/p>\n