IT has spent 46 years in our outer solar system travelling billions of miles – but it could be 300,000 more years before the spaceship Voyager 2 glimpses another star.
The experts are hoping that before this time, aliens may find the probe with the information about Earth contained in the time capsule.
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Any ET cracking open the cache will be treated to music by Beethoven and Mozart, as well as Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong’s Melancholy Blues.
They will also receive a special message from Jimmy Carter when they blast into space along with Voyager 1, their twin.
You can also find out more about the following: You can also read about future plans. Voyager 2’s future looked uncertain a few days back after Nasa cut off contact.
But agency chiefs breathed a sigh of relief when it reconnected 12 days later by sending a “heartbeat signal” to Earth.
Astrophysicist Dr Jacco van Loon said of the 12in gold-plated phonograph record on Voyager 2, packed with audio, pictures and the sounds of nature: “This will all be fine if the extra-terrestrials have ears, although it is expected they will have similar sensory organs as us.
“It makes sense to have eyes and ears because they will live on a planet with an atmosphere to which sound travels.”
But he added: “They will be different, just like when you travel to another continent and you will find different wildlife.
“And in the past, life has also looked different as a result of evolution.
“But will these ETs be friendly or hostile?
“It is an important question to consider and one that people did not completely agree on when it was decided to include all the information on the time capsule.”
Two robotic interstellar space probes were launched into orbit in 1977 by Cape Canaveral (Florida).
They were sent on a mission to look closer than any telescope on Earth at the four outer big planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
They have discovered new moons using onboard technologies such as TV cameras, UV sensors, magnetometers, and plasma detectors.
Batteries on both probes should die soon, so that contact with them will end.
The speed of the aircraft will increase to more than 34,000 mph as they continue on their way.
Voyager 1 currently is 15billion kilometers away from Earth.
The Dr van Loon of Keele University in Staffs warned that Voyager 2 might change its course, and make the ultimate route a mystery.
He explained: “It could be up to a hundred million or a billion years before it comes close to another star.
“The likelihood there would be life on those planets who are technologically advanced and can make sense of what this space matter is, is not very high, but it is possible.
“If we discovered something flying through our solar system, we would be excited and we would try to intercept it and find out more.”
In 1990, after a last iconic shot was taken on Voyager 1, the cameras were turned off to prolong battery life. нормулирование Earth as a tiny dot of blue
Dr van Loon said: “We have learnt so much from the Voyager crafts about ourselves and our conditions on Earth and how our atmosphere protects us against radiation.
“The more we learn about space and other planets and the solar system, the more we realise how precious the Earth and its atmosphere is, and how fragile and vulnerable we are.
“This will help us define our own future on earth.”
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