A an accidental glance at a local newspaper showed to me that today is the 37th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1, the man-made object that is farthest from Earth. Today, it's 19.3 billion miles from us, more or less into interstellar space past the outer boundary of our solar system.
Nothing embodies the boldness of deep space travel like a hot bald-headed woman in a skimpy outfit, which is why I drew this today. The girl with the glowing throat is Star Trek's Lieutenant Ilia, who features prominently when our Voyager probe unexpectedly returns to Earth in the year 2270.
The Ilia character first appeared on Earth-style movie screens back in 1979. I wasn't even a teen-ager by that time. While the events in the Star Trek motion picture were futuristic, in our universe at that time the real space probe would have been pursuing its slingshot trajectory around Jupiter. Today, Voyager I is nearly 129 AU's from Earth (an AU is an Astronomical Unit, measured as the distance from the Earth to the Sun.).
Who knows where Voyager will go, for how far or for how long. Or if it will ever be found again...
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