After traveling a whopping 11.5 billion miles Voyager 1 has still not reached its destination, interstellar space, reports The New York Times.
Thirty-five years after being launched from Earth both Voyager 1 and 2 are still heading out into the depths of space hoping to break out of the solar system in order to reach deep space. Despite moving at an unfathomable speed, 38,000 miles per hour, Voyager 1 has not quite left our solar system yet.
Last summer scientists thought that the spacecraft had finally left the heliosheath, the outermost layer of the solar system. They had predicted that two things would happen once the ship was in deep space; solar wind would disappear and the direction of the magnetic field would change direction. Scientists were correct about the first part, Voyager 1 no longer detects any solar wind, but the magnetic field has yet to change direction leaving them baffled, reports The New York Times.
Mission scientist Leonard Burlaga told the Associated Press that it may be difficult to tell when exactly the spacecraft will have left the solar system; the data takes a long time to arrive at Earth and a long time to be processed once here. Also, since no spacecraft has crossed into interstellar space before scientists are not 100 percent sure what to expect.
"Crossing may not be an instantaneous thing," Burlaga said. "It may be complicated."
The two Voyager space craft are nuclear powered and should have enough battery power left to keep themselves running until 2020. When the Voyager spacecraft were originally sent out from Earth to explore the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune scientists never thought that they would end up leaving the solar system, but they were prepared.
"It turns out that in fact we designed the cosmic ray instrument specifically for this phase of this mission," Edward Stone, project scientist for both Voyagers, told The New York Times. "We were planning, and it really paid off. We've begun to see what's outside even though the magnetic field says you're not outside."
Both of the Voyagers carry a golden record that has information about Earth on it including pictures, songs, and greetings in 55 different languages. The contents of the record were chosen by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan, according to NASA.
