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    Some really cool things often go unnoticed

    Travelling at 38,000 mph, the Voyager 1 probe was launched on 5 September 1977 with the intention of studying Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Now, 33 years later and almost 11 billion miles from home, it is going where no Earth object has gone before.

    “Both Voyager probes are approaching the interstellar medium, with Voyager 1 further ahead than its sister ship Voyager 2 (which is travelling at 35,000 mph). It is here that the nature of the environment is expected to dramatically alter.

    Dispatched towards deep space, the Voyager probes have functioned far beyond expectations, with their radioactive power packs continuing to work and send data back to Earth, although at such a distance away any radio message takes 16 hours to reach us.