Do alien life form exit? Are they intelligent? Do they posses technologies that we never dreamed off? These are some of the questions that would have passed through our mind at least once in a lifetime.
Humankind’s thirst for knowledge,and curiosity has rewarded with him ground-breaking technologies and innovations.He has unraveled many secrets of the universe, like finding Earth like planets,predicting age,shape,fate through theories and explanations.But the only thing we have yet to find out is life form other than our own.
Enter,the Voyager probes,two of them-Voyager 1,Voyager 2.Voyager 1 was launched in September 5,1977 but surpassed it’s successor,Voyager 2,which was launched on August 20,1977.
Voyager 1 was lifted off with a Titan III E rocket.The primary mission was to encounter outer planets such as Jupiter & Saturn .
Voyager missions also laid emphasis to study the moons of both planets ans the significant discovery was the volcanic activity in IO.(one of the moon of Jupiter),and predicting life supporting conditions in the moon of Saturn:TITAN(Read more on the link) ,using remote sensing methods.Even after ending it’s primary mission both Voyagers are travelling at speeds average of 15 km/s.
On September 2013, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause of the Sun.(Outer most part of heliosphere) i.e leaving sun’s influence and into interstellar space.Both Voyagers carried a gold plated audio,visual disc containing the location of Earth,in case some intelligent life form may encounter it.
Next destination is Oort Cloud which is 300 years away and would take 30000 years to pass through it.
Good Luck, and Godspeed Voyager!!
the martian diaries 