The (ignored) long reach of Humanity
I still find amazing how unimportant some things are to the media and people in general. The furthest man-made objects are the Voyager 1 probe, now 15.5 billion kilometers from Sun – that’s 103.6 times the distance the Earth is from the Sun, and it’s sister probe, the Voyager 2, which is 12.3 billion kilometers from the Sun (82.2 AU).
After 30 years from their launch from Earth, despite still being operational and doing active and useful science, they are mostly unknown to everyone. These are the pinnacles of human genius – pieces of ourselves out there, studying the universe. We should be celebrating our long reach as humans – instead, we focus on the worst and most banal aspects of humanity, everyday.
They’re not the only probes still working – many others are active, a lot of them lasting well beyond their expected lifespan.
