Buzz Lightyear, the toy action figure, made the declaration "To infinity and beyond!" famous, but the Voyager 1 spacecraft made it real. Earlier this month, scientists confirmed that the probe, launched nearly four decades ago, has left our Solar System and has reached interstellar space.
The Voyager 1 is the first man-made object to make that extraordinary transition, a milestone on a par with other historical moments such as the first circumnavigation of the globe or putting a man on the moon. Mankind has finally ventured into the stars.
Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in September 1977 to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the outer planets of our solar system. The spacecraft alerted us to active volcanoes on Io, one of Jupiter's moons, gave us intimate glimpses of Saturn's rings, and discovered many previously unknown moons around those planets. They finished that assignment in 1989, at which point they were directed to deep space, to continue a journey that will eventually take them to other stars and solar systems.