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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: T-minus 10, nine, eight, seven.
ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
In 1977, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe blasted into the sky from the coast of Florida.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We have ignition. We have a lift off.
NADWORNY: Its mission was supposed to last five years. Today, it's the farthest man-made object ever, and it's running out of power. The Voyager achieved interstellar travel in 2012 when it passed the boundaries of our solar system. It's been collecting and transmitting data about low energy charged particles. That information helps us understand space outside our sun. But after 49 years, it's starting to lose some of its juice. So NASA shut down one of its science instruments to conserve power. The other instruments, one that measures magnetic fields and one that listens to plasma waves, will keep working. One thing it won't lose is a golden record containing the sounds of Earth, things like trains and heartbeats and laughter, and a track by Bach - a way for extraterrestrials to get to know us, should the probe come across them.
(SOUNDBITE OF KARL RICHTER AND MUNICH BACH ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF BACH'S "BRANDENBURG CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F, FIRST MOVEMENT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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