Still operational , the Voyagers are being tracked and commanded through the Deep Space Network . Having traveled beyond the outer planets, these remarkable spacecraft are only the third and fourth human built artifacts to escape our solar system, following in the footsteps of Pioneer 10 and 11 . The recorded material was selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. The exotic construction of the disks should provide them with a long lifetime as they coast through interstellar space. The two spacecraft will not make a close approach to another planetary system for at least 40,000 years.
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