In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. They have been slowly disabling them since 1998, because of limited power/use at various ranges.
Think about that for a moment…
It launched almost 50 years ago, in 1977. And we are STILL able to communicate with it. Expectedly until 2036. And this with our technology knowledge at the time.
Unless it collides with something or is retrieved, it will reach the Oort Cloud in about 300 years. It will take about 30k years to pass through it.
All of this blows my mind.
