Man has looked up at the heavens in amazement since time immemorial. Be it the Greeks, the Mayans, the Romans, or any other civilization, stars and heavenly bodies have greatly mystified and influenced them. Where did the Zodiac come from? How were the constellations discovered? What brought the fields of astrology and astronomy into existence? It was man’s curiosity towards space, his thirst for understanding and his quest to discover and explore that implored him to go deeper and deeper into his quest for truth and understanding.

While studying the space had been a vocation for quite a long time – perhaps dating back to the prehistoric period – it wasn’t until the early 20^th century, when large rockets were developed, that space exploration became a reality. Ironically, the “Space Race” as it is commonly referred to, did not start between the US and the USSR for advancement of knowledge and scientific research, but rather, for gaining military and strategic advantage against each other. Still, despite the ill-conceived intentions behind this space race, space exploration has come a long way since the first man-made object launch of Russian Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4, 1957, and the infamous moon landing of America’s Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. Today, America’s space program is larger than any other in the world, and NASA successfully boasts numerous projects, like the International Space Station (ISS), Commercial Space Transportation, Human Exploration and the lot. Two rather interesting ones among these are Voyager and New Horizons.

Both these projects were unmanned space missions designed for one thing: studying the farthest corners of our solar system. The Voyager program consisted of two space probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, launched in 1977 for, primarily, the study of planets Jupiter and Saturn. Both these probes, however, lived long enough to go past the outer rims of our solar system, and are en route to exiting the solar system altogether. In fact, Voyager 1 is, at present, the farthest-from-earth man-made object in space! The Voyager mission, in particular, proved to be a huge boost for space understanding, as it provided previously unavailable data for understanding both these giant planets.

New Horizons, on the other hand, is NASA’s relatively new space probe, launched Jan. 19, 2006. Targeted towards the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons, almost on the outskirts of our solar system. The mission is supposed to reach the cold planet by July 14, 2015, and as of Jan. 4, 2012, New Horizons has just crossed Uranus, and was at a distance of roughly 3.436 x 10⁹ km from earth!

With programs such as New Frontiers (of which New Horizons is a part), Discovery missions and the Flagship Program, it seems that the true, academic race for understanding the cosmos has just started – and the horizon looks great.