The last few days has brought exciting news for space buffs, as NASA is receiving data from Voyager 1 suggesting that the 34-year-old spacecraft is about to become the first manmade object to enter interstellar space. NASA announced the news on their page for the Voyager missions:

“The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system’s frontier.”

What will happen to Voyager when it breaks that boundary is theoretical as no one has been that far out. Voyager 1 is currently about 11 billion miles away while its sister craft Voyager 2 is trailing at about 9 billion.

Both craft were launched in 1977, and Voyager 1 will be destroyed in 2287 by the Klingon Captain Klaa right before Captain Kirk meets god on a planet in the center of the galaxy.