Man, saw this thread bumped and was afraid someone beat me to the punch. I'd go so far as to say this is the most amazing, spectacular, wondrous and exciting news in my lifetime. (Born after Apollo missions.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/out-there-nasas-voyager-1-becomes-first-spacecraft-to-speed-through-interstellar-space/2013/09/12/55a9b094-1bd4-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.htmlVoyager 1 has left the building, ladies and gents. (Although it actually, apparently, happened a year ago.)
Now to address the inevitable 'so what?'s, why is this so important and thrilling? Admittedly, all Voyager detected was a difference in magnetic fields and the strength of particles from outside our solar system. That's largely all this is.
But...
We have left our solar system. Voyager 1 is now the first human made object, possibly (although most certainly not) the very first life based object to leave the stellar system of that specie's birth. It's an amazing accomplishment. And it means that no matter what happens to us, whether we wipe ourselves out, our sun goes buh-bye, or whatever - there will always be a piece of humanity drifting about the cosmos, at the very least for millions of years. Bravo, NASA of old, bravo.
