It was confirmed earlier this month that Voyager I has left our solar system – the first humna powered craft to do so. It takes a while to confirm in part because the tiny spacecraft is so far away from home, it takes a long time for it to communicate back – what we are hearing from it now actually happened a while ago.

It was launched in the 1970s and has been transmitting amazing images back to us ever since. As I read about its on board technology, which includes 8 track tapes and less memory than the lowest of low grade cell phones, it got me wondering about what people will think of my fancy IPhone, high def DVD players, and flat screen TV in 30 or 40 years.  Will it be as quaint as what is on board Voyager?  Will it still be reliably transmitting anything at all?  Who knows.  But in its day, Voyager was ahead of its time, outfitted with the latest and greatest, and few could have forecasted that it could be out-tech-geeked what we would carry in our pockets today.