They DID build 'em better back then.

[North]

"The journey of NASA's dauntless Voyager 2 spacecraft through our solar system's farthest reaches has given scientists new insight into a poorly understood distant frontier: the unexpectedly distinct boundary marking where the sun's energetic influence ends and interstellar space begins.

The U.S. space agency previously announced that Voyager 2, the second human-made object ever to depart the solar system following its twin Voyager 1, had zipped into interstellar space on Nov. 5, 2018, at a point more than 17.7 billion kilometres from the sun. Several research papers published on Monday provided scientific details of that crossing.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched in 1977, designed for five-year missions. Voyager 1 left the solar system at a different location in 2012. Both are now traversing the Milky Way galaxy's interstellar medium, a chillier region filling the vast expanses between the galaxy's stars and planetary systems.

The solar wind — the unending flow of charged particles emanating from the outer atmosphere of the sun — creates an immense protective bubble called the heliosphere that envelopes the solar system. The boundary of the solar system — the place where the solar wind ends and interstellar space begins — is called the heliopause."...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/v...pace-1.5274614

[Sea Ray]

Interesting. What powers Voyager 2 at this point?

[BernieCarbo]

Interesting. What powers Voyager 2 at this point?

It’s actually a very interesting but very simple concept. You are aware of thermocouples that are in nearly every oven? When a thermocouple heats up, it generates a small voltage that goes to a meter that then displays the temperature. I remember years ago that you could take a small fan connected to a thermocouple and set it on your woodstove, and it would automatically start running when the stove heated up.

In the case of these spacecraft, the heat source is plutonium.