The Conversation contributed the article to Space.com's expert voices.
Alice is an Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies at the university.
45 years ago today, on August 20, 1977, an extraordinary craft left this planet on a journey that would change our understanding of the solar system. It was like sending a fly to New York and asking it to return.
On Sept.5th, the first Voyager was launched. There was a Golden Record attached to the flank of each Voyager.
There were more or less twins with different instruments. While both flew by the planets, the first one sped towards the stars. The only visit to the ice giants ever made was by Voyager 2.
Take a look at the amazing images of our solar system in the gallery.
The Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that the pale blue-green clouds and a possible "dark spot" that were mapped by Voyager 2 were real. A corkscrew trail of particles behind the planet was dragged by a magnetic field. There are ten new moons, including the grey, cratered Puck, and two new coal-black rings.
Images of teal and cobalt clouds were sent home by the ship after it reached Neptune. A dark spot indicated a storm. There were geysers of frozen nitrogen and methane ice on the largest moon.
Since then, there has been no return of the craft.
The Golden Records, which are the most famous records in the world, are even more fascinating than the glimpse of the icy planets. The materials to represent planet Earth were assembled for over a year by a committee headed by Carl Sagan. It's the music that gets the most attention, but it's not the whole story.
Stone tools are one of the sounds of Earth. Humans and their ancestors have been using this technology for over 3 million years, and it is still being used today. Every community used to hear the sound of stone hitting stone to detach a sharp-edged cutting flake.
The sound of heartbeats can be heard against the sounds of stone.
In one of the 116 images, a black scientist in a lab coat bends over to look at something. Would a future alien see the concept of jewelry in the earrings? It was hoped that this image and the photomicrograph would help viewers understand the science of microscopy.
In 55 languages, people recorded messages. The Akkadian and Hittite languages are not heard on Earth for thousands of years. "hello," "peace" and "friend" are some of the words used. The Portuguese greeting is "peace and happiness to all."
At the heliopause, the solar wind is turned back by winds from the outside. Our universe is 100,000 light-years away from Earth.
The three antennas that are still listening are Goldstone, Madrid and Tidbinbilla.
The Oort Cloud is a vast, dark sphere of icy objects surrounding the solar system that will take 20,000 years to travel through.
The systems are being shut down to make sure they don't run out of power. Sometime in the 20th century, there will be no remaining.
It won't be completely dead even after the transmission ends. The half-life of plutonium-238 in its nuclear power source is 87.7 years, while that of the small patch of uranium-238 coating is 4.5 billion years. The elements are starting to turn into something.
At a time scale, the radioactive transmutation of the elements is a sort of reverse alchemy. The process of becoming will continue until there is nothing left to transform.
Dust particles will gradually erode the surfaces of Voyager 2 because it's travelling through different regions of space. It should be legible after 5 billion years.
Even 100 years from now, the Earth depicted on the Golden Records will not be the same. The records will remain a fragment of an archaeological record.
The cultural significance of the Voyagers lies in their location. The boundary markers show the amount of engagement with the universe by humans.
It will be like losing a sense when the transmissions stop. There is no substitute for being there.
Who will follow in their footsteps?
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