Voyager 1 Turns 35 Years Old

No less than 35 years ago to date, on September 5, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 spacecraft towards the edge of the solar system, aboard a Titan IIIE delivery system featuring a Centaurus upper stage. The space probe took off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), in Florida.

Now, all these years later, the spacecraft is located a whopping 18.21 billion kilometers (11.31 billion miles) away from our planet, at a distance of roughly 121 astronomical units (AU). Experts say that it takes around 33 hours and 44 minutes for light to travel from Voyager 1 to our planet.

The probe flew past Jupiter, in 1979, and then past Saturn, in 1980. Ten years later, it acquired its famous Pale Blue Dot image, showing Earth from its distant vantage point, above the solar system eclipse. That photograph has since made history.

As if its accomplishments to date were not enough, the spacecraft is also about to exist the solar system, and cruise into interstellar space. This is expected to occur within a year or so, NASA says.