Yay!

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

Cool--will we see VGER looking for its creator in years to come?

I couldn't resist the Star Trek: the Motion Picture reference. :)

Voyager approaches edge of solar system

I was 10 when Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched. They did an amazing job of helping us explore the solar system, and continue to do so at its outer reaches. It's absolutely wonderful that 35 years later, they're still chugging along. Although we are slated to lose contact with them sometime between 2020 and 2025, they will continue as a testament to mankind's desire to explore space.

Pictured is the Voyager Golden Record. Each of the Voyager spacecraft carry one, which was a sort of time capsule of for anyone who might encounter them. In the words of President Jimmy Carter:

'This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.'

Let us hope so....

Well of course we're still evolving

but scientists are realising we're evolving much quicker than pre-agrarian humans--partly in response to diseases that hit large groups of people who are living in close quarters. But pale skin and blue eyes are relatively recent mutations, for example.

Study finds humans still evolving, and quickly

Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution

Also on the scientific front, Voyager 2 has discovered a dent in our solar system due to magnetic forces.

Voyager 2 finds solar system's shape is 'dented'

I was 10 years old when the Voyager probes were launched, along with their Golden Records. An excerpt from the Voyager 1 greeting by Jimmy Carter (given in the Wikipedia article) goes like this:

We cast this message into the cosmos… Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some — perhaps many — may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.

The 70s were in some ways a very hopeful time, weren't they?