the.com/voyager
the spacecraft that left the solar system carrying a mixtape for aliens who don't own a record player
means A person (or vehicle) that makes a long journey, especially by sea or through space.
from From Old French 'voiage' (a journey, travel), itself from Latin 'viaticum' — provisions for a trip — built on 'via,' a road or way. So a voyager is, at root, someone carrying supplies down the road; over centuries the word drifted from dusty Roman highways to ocean crossings, and eventually to a NASA probe carrying its own gold-plated provisions into the dark.
- launched
- 1977, still phoning home decades later
- golden record
- sounds and music etched for extraterrestrials
- distance
- over 15 billion miles from Earth
- power
- runs on slowly decaying plutonium
- signal lag
- radio takes nearly a day to arrive
for instance
voyager 1 — nasa spacecraft launched 1977, furthest human-made object from earth, still transmitting data
voyager 2 — nasa spacecraft launched 1977, only probe to visit all four gas giants