Voyager - The Interstellar Mission

The Voyager program is a continuing American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer solar system. They were launched in 1977.

On August 25, 2012, data from Voyager 1 indicated that it had become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, traveling "further than anyone, or anything, in history". As of 2013, Voyager 1 was moving with a velocity of 17 kilometres per second. Voyager 2 is expected to enter interstellar space within 2016.

Interesting facts:

Voyager Golden Record

Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a 12 inch golden phonograph record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth along with symbolic directions on the cover for playing the record and data detailing the location of our planet.  The record is intended as a combination of a time capsule and an interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human that may recover either of the Voyager craft. 

Pale Blue Dot

Among the best-known images taken by Voyager 1 is of the Earth as a pale blue dot, taken in 1990.

This image is popularized with the quote by Carl Sagan:

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

something to really ponder on... our Existential Intelligence.