Voyager 1

Voyager 1 is a space probe used by NASA to explore Jupiter and Saturn. It's identical in form to its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2.

Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, to study the outer planets of the Solar System. It is now in an extended mission. Its encounter with Saturn and Titan sent it on a hyperbolic trajectory out of the solar system, traveling at 17 km/s (38,000 mph; 61,000 km/h) which is much faster than escape velocity.

Voyager 1's research team announced on August 25, 2012 that it had left the solar system. It passed out of the heliosphere and into interstellar space. It's the most distant man-made object. On February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the Earth's farthest spacecraft from the Earth, when it overtook Pioneer 10 at a total distance of 70 AU, which is 6.5 billion miles from the Sun. It's also the first man-made object to leave the solar system. As of September 20, 2021 it was 14,300,000,000 miles (2.30×10¹⁰ km) from Earth.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 include the Voyager Golden Record, which is a recording of sounds and images of life on Earth. It was designed by a team headed by Carl Sagan to communicate with extraterrestrial life.