The Voyager 1 Autobiography
I was launched on September 5, 1977, two weeks after my twin sister. I am well into the fourth decade of our mission to explore the outer solar system.
I took the very first photo of the Earth and the moon in one frame, two weeks into my career. Hear it’s iconic now.
In 1990, I had gone past Neptune, some 3.7 billion miles from the sun, when I turned back for a final look at the solar system. On that day, I took the first family portrait of the solar system, now known as the Pale Blue Dot. HQ powered off my camera afterwards so I could save my energy for the rest of the voyage.
Proud to announce that I was the first human-made object to ever enter interstellar space. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was in 2012 that I felt the Sun’s gravitational pull was easing on my vessel as I crossed the heliosphere.
Imbedded inside me is a Golden record of humanity’s message to aliens, a diverse package of voices and music, hoping I get to deliver it to extraterrestrial life out there one day. It includes greetings in 55 languages and pictures of people and landscapes.
The record has been good company, makes me appreciate humanity’s gesture. After all, I got to listen to Beethoven and Chuck Berry in the solitude of space as I flew by Jupiter and Saturn.
My power supply is falling, meaning I can only collect and transmit data back to Headquarters until 2025. It takes 21 hours for my data to reach Headquarters, every time. Not a surprise, I am almost 14.5 billion miles away from the Earth.
I thought my mission had ended in 2025.
As I was orbiting around in 2030, five years after I had lost contact with my handlers on the Earth and the ISS, I saw it. It was beyond anything I had hoped for…
I mustered all my remaining energy to tell the human race about it… a weak signal, but enough to get the Metamorph to enlist a crew of remarkable volunteers to decipher my fragmented data.
Hope you make it!
Source: NASA
Reminder: The last two paragraphs of the text are purely fiction.
Earth and Moon in one frame:
Solar System Family Portrait
