Voyagers 1 and 2 have broken many records during their almost 30 years of space travel. Both are now flying to the edge of our solar system, on differing vectors. Voyager 1 met the heliosheath, the region of space outside the sun's heliosphere, in May 2005, and scientists think it will pass into interstellar space at about 19.96 billion kilometres from the sun. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 has hit the southern edge of the heliosphere much sooner, at about 16.9 billion kilometres from our sun. This suggests the heliosphere is a much more elongated shape rather than spherical. Our sun generates the heliosphere like an invisible bubble around our solar system, the edges of which interact with interstellar gases and other elements. The Voyagers should remain in service for many more years, and will hopefully return much more data about our mysterious solar system.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

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