Earth: Not the Only Place

By Jason Yoon' 22

Outer space used to be an untouchable boundary to human technology throughout history. However, the secrets of interstellar space is to be revealed, by two spaceships called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. It has been over 50 years since mankind started launching spaceships to research planets. The first planetary mission in history was “Mars” launched by the Soviet Union in 1960, and the first successful planetary mission was “Mariner 2” launched by the US two years later.

Since then, the US and Russia’s planetary missions concentrated on neighboring planets like Venus and Mars, especially the spaceship “Pathfinder” discovered evidence of water on Mars, and two twin spaceships “Spirit” and “Opportunity” is examining Mars surface to find any extra evidence of water and life.

However, due to the difficulty of exploring planets after Jupiter, there were only a few spaceships that reached near Jupiter and Saturn. Two of those spaceships, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, both traveled through deep space after exploring Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. As of November 5th, 2018, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 managed to enter interstellar space. Since Voyager 1’s launch in September 1977, Voyager 1 traveled about 13 billion miles.

According to NASA, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 passed the heliosphere and heliopause, where solar wind no longer takes effect. NASA confirmed that both spaceships were in interstellar space through the decrease of solar plasma particles and the increase in high energy cosmic rays. Also, the temperature of plasma particles was higher before passing the heliopause, and lowering after entering interstellar space.

Then how could these spaceships travel this long distance for such a long time? The first person to figure out a way to reach planets through less energy was German engineer Walter Hohmann. He presented a flight orbit shaped like an ellipse, or the “Hohmann orbit” in 1925, that used each planet’s revolution energy to minimize the energy needed for each spaceship.

The Voyagers are now almost done with their mission. Voyager 1’s first power supply will be turned off in 2020, and all of it’s gears will stop working in 2025. The operating plutonium energy source is about to run out. Still considering the possibility of encountering extraterrestrial life, scientists inserted a disk called “golden record” that stores 55 kinds of greetings, Earth’s cultures and music. It is unknown if humans will ever meet an alien, thanks to the voyagers, it is applicable to have hope though.

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