Though this is several days late, it's better late than never.
I've added items in the first pic so the bedroom doesn't look so bare.
This is the 50th year anniversary that Thomas had started working for NASA.
Thomas and his wife, Gloria, went out to a nice cafe' to celebrate the evening of that anniversary.
Once they got home, Gloria thought it would be novel for Thomas to wear the pair of underwear he had that has butterfly patterns on it when they went to bed that night. Only problem is, neither of them have seen that pair of underwear since August 31st, 1977.
The reason those underwear haven't been seen for nearly 50 years is because a fellow coworker, Otis Opossum, pulled a prank with them. On the evening of August 31st, 1977, Thomas and Gloria invited Otis and several other coworkers to their house for Gloria's 26th birthday party.
During the party, Otis Opossum found those butterfly underwear in some laundry that had been washed.
Unbeknown to Thomas and Gloria, Otis took those underwear. Otis Opossum thought it would be funny to attach the butterfly underwear to Voyager 1's magnetometer boom. At the time, it was 5 more days before Voyager 1 was due to be launched.
On the day of the launch, which was September 5th, 1977, it was about 3 hours before the launch when Otis and a coworker friend, William Ferret (Willy), went up the launch tower under the pretense they were doing a final inspection before the launch. Willy Ferret stood look out as Otis Opossum attached the butterfly underwear to the magnetometer boom of Voyager 1, then closed the rocket's cargo capsule back up.
"Everything checks out A-okay", Otis reported to a supervisor as he and Willy came back down off the launch tower.
Three hours later when Voyager 1 was being launched, Otis Opossum and William Ferret laughed as Otis said, "Well. There goes Thomas Fox's butterfly underwear".
By now, Voyager 1 is about 4 times the distance from the sun than Planet Pluto is from the sun. It takes 22 and a half hours for radio signals (and light) to travel from Earth to Voyager 1...And another 22 and a half hours for radio response to travel from Voyager 1 to Earth.
Each day that goes by, 4.9 seconds more is added to the time it takes for radio signals to travel between Earth and Voyager 1.
38,000 mph, Voyager's speed in relation to the position of the Sun.
x 24 hours
= 912, 000 miles further out per day
912,000 miles further out each day
÷ Speed of radio/light, 186,000 miles per second.
= 4.9 seconds added to radio lag time each way per day.
Arrival time for radio signals each way will vary according to Earth's position in orbit around the Sun by as much as 22 minutes.
It is speculated that Voyager 1 will be a full light day away from the Sun on or about February 3rd, 2027, whereby radio signals will take 24 hours to travel each way.
Voyager 1 is expected to be one light year away 18,000 years from now...By then, hypothetically if Voyager 1 is still operational, and Earth civilization is still around, it will take a full year for radio signals as we now know them (and light) to arrive each way between Voyager 1 and Earth (Two years from the time Earth sends a signal to the time a response arrives back).
Those underwear aren't coming back.
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outer space
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nasa
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voyager 1
2
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4 months, 2 weeks ago
10 Aug 2024 01:43 CEST
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