When it comes to space exploration, no one has the Voyager missions beat. On October 5, NASA reported that their Voyager 2 spacecraft is nearing our heliosphere’s outer borders, and could soon enter interstellar space. Data shows that the probe is detecting more and more cosmic rays from outer space — indicating a slow escape from the sun’s stellar bubble. If all goes as planned, the craft will follow in the footsteps of Voyager 1 and become the second human-made object to ever visit the interstellar medium.
Voyager 2’s mission has been long and strenuous, to say the least. It’s traveled about 11 billion miles (17.7 billion kilometers) from Earth since it launched in 1977, and spent three decades cruising through space before finally reaching the outermost layer of our heliosphere — the massive bubble, created by the sun’s solar wind, that encompasses the Sun, its planets and regions far ...
