07 Dec 2011 - The spacecraft is close to leaving the Solar System and into the uncharted territory of the Milky Way after more than three decades in space. Voyager 1 was launched with its twin, Voyager 2, by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in 1977. Voyager 1 is travelling at just under 11 miles per second and sending information from nearly 11 billion miles away from the sun. It is about to become the first man-made object to leave the Solar System, although Nasa expects it to take between several months and years before it completely enters interstellar space. Voyager 2 will follow later. Ed Stone, the Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said: "Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system. Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8940350/Nasas-Voyager-1-in-cosmic-purgatory-on-verge-of-entering-Milky-Way.html