Here is a little watercolor I did of Voyager 1. Scientists are still receiving Voyager dispatches from the unknown that will go silent in the next decade. Voyager spacecrafts left the heliosphere in 2012 and are still under the influence of our sun’s particles and will reach the Oort Cloud in 300 years (a region extends perhaps one-quarter to halfway from our Sun to the next star). When they leave the icy Oort Cloud breaking free of our solar system, they will enter a stretch of interstellar space that does not play by the sun’s rules. There, the sun will become just another star in someone else’s night sky. Its warmth or gravity won’t register, but its glow will radiate for light-years. In all likelihood the Voyagers will still be coasting through the galaxy in 5 billion years and probably long after Earth is gone.
