The American airship is about to fly out of the solar system

After more than 30 years of flying in space, a US ship is about to escape the boundary of the solar system.

Voyager 1 was launched by the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) in 1977 with Voyager 2 to explore the stars Thien Vuong, Hai Vuong, Moc and Tho. After the main mission ended, the two ships flew toward the solar system edge in opposite directions.

Voyager 1 illustration.

Voyager 1 is now nearly 18 billion kilometers from Earth. It has been exploring the sun's edge since 2004 and only had to fly for a few months to a year before it left the solar system and became the first human ship to enter interstellar space . The ship has enough electricity to operate until 2020, the AP reported.

Ed Stone, a NASA expert, said scientists could not accurately calculate when the ship would leave the solar system because none of the ships traveled as far as Voyager 1.

Last year Voyager 1 used its devices to explore the "wind zone" in the universe. It is an area containing high-energy particles from the sun and interstellar regions. The charged particles escaped under solar winds at speeds of up to 1.7 million km / h, but when it came to "windy regions" , their speed decreased markedly.

Scientists can rely on some signs to know when Voyager 1 left the solar system - like the direction of the magnetic field and the appearance of wind in the interstellar region. Compared to the solar wind, the wind in the interstellar region is slow, cold and denser.

Voyager 2 ships slower than Voyager 1, so it is currently about 14 billion kilometers from Earth.