When I was growing up, there was a concerted effort to involve kids in the study of science and, more specifically, the space program. When I was in elementary school, I remember NASA came to the gym where my most vivid memory involved the guest scientist playing with liquid oxygen. If I can write about it today, it was surely a high-impact demonstration. At home, I can recall assembling a plastic model of the Apollo LEM. The first moon landing occurred during the summer before I entered Grade 5. Because cassettes hadn't been perfected yet, I captured TV audio on my small reel-to-reel tape recorder. Educational interest in space seemed nearly universal during my youth.
The very year I graduated from high school, Voyager escaped the bounds of earth. Now, twenty-six years after the fact, it's the most distant human-made object in the universe. Those words look simple enough; but imagine, nothing touched by a human has ever gone as far! Although we're still in contact, it left our solar system a few months ago and is speeding into the blackness in excess of 40,000 miles per hour. I fear trying to fathom its 8.5-billion mile progress is next to impossible.
What I also find fascinating is the Golden Record of humanity that Voyager contains. (Voyager 2, hot on its twin's far-flung heels, contains a duplicate.)
NASA's Flash Animation and Site
Some of the Recording's Content
Physical Aspects of the Recording
Because we are so used to CD's and DVD's nowadays, we have to remember that Voyager's 12-inch, metal disk is more akin to an old LP. It is analog and contains a stylus and set of intergalactic, 'pictograph' instructions on how to play it. Voyager has been journeying for about 60% of my life and this seems long to me. However, it will be 40 to 60 thousand years before it approaches another planetary system!