Queen’s University astronomy expert David Hanes is available to comment on NASA’s Voyager 1 being on the verge of leaving the solar system. This is the first time a manmade object has left our solar system.

NASA’s Voyager 1 was launched to Jupiter and Saturn 35 years ago on Wednesday making it the longest-operating spacecraft in history. It is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun.  The spacecraft has 68 kilobytes of computer memory, an eight-track tape recorder and gold-plated discs containing multilingual greetings, music and pictures in the off chance that intelligent species come across them.

Dr. Hanes is the head of the Queen’s department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy.

To arrange an interview, please contact communication officers Anne Craig at 613-533-2877 or anne.craig@queensu.ca or Michael Onesi at 613.533.6000 ext. 77513 or michael.onesi@queensu.at Queen’s University News and Media Services Department in Kingston, Ont., Canada.

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