NASA’s Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, only 16 days after the launch of Voyager 1.
It was originally planned to travel for five years and study Jupiter and Saturn but along the way, went far beyond any expectation.
His mission, which has lasted 41 years, is the longest in NASA's history.
For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars.
NASA’s Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields
created by the Sun.
Its twin, Voyager 1, made this historic crossing in 2012.
Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 18 billion kilometres from Earth.
Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth.
By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.
