Here’s a happy item:
More than 30 years after they left Earth, NASA’s twin Voyager probes are now at the edge of the solar system. Not only that, they’re still working. And with each passing day they are beaming back a message that, to scientists, is both unsettling and thrilling.
The message is, “Expect the unexpected.”
“It’s uncanny,” says Ed Stone of Caltech, Voyager Project Scientist since 1972. “Voyager 1 and 2 have a knack for making discoveries.”
Today, April 28, 2011, NASA held a live briefing to reflect on what the Voyager mission has accomplished–and to preview what lies ahead as the probes prepare to enter the realm of the Milky Way itself.
My favorite thing about the Voyager probes is the golden phonograph records they carry.
More here.