NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are still chugging along out of the solar system, despite the fact they were launched more than 43 years ago. And while both robotic explorers have their problems, the Voyagers do still have some functioning instruments, with the two craft periodically beaming useful data back to Earth.

Voyager 2 is currently about 125 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, where 1 AU is the average Earth-Sun distance. That’s about three times farther away than Pluto, which means that any radio signals Voyager 2 sends take about 17 hours and 25 minutes to reach Earth. And add...See more