Voyager Memes

The cosmic irony of space exploration! NASA's Voyager 2 mission to Neptune in 1989 used technology from the 1970s, including a primitive 0.64 megapixel camera, to capture our best images of the ice giant. The 2.7 KB/s data transfer rate meant each image took HOURS to download—slower than the first dial-up modems! Meanwhile, your phone probably has a 12+ megapixel camera that instantly uploads selfies. Next time your WiFi buffers for 5 seconds, remember astronomers waited patiently while blurry Neptune pics trickled back at speeds that would make a snail seem zippy. Space: where cutting-edge science meets Stone Age bandwidth.

The ultimate cosmic ghosting! While everyone pours out emotions over Mars rovers that die after a decade of service, Voyager's out there like "I've literally left the solar system and I'm STILL sending data back." Launched in the 1970s when computers had less processing power than your kitchen toaster, this spacecraft has been traveling for over 45 years, crossed into interstellar space, and continues to transmit signals despite running on the equivalent of a car battery and a radio weaker than your grandma's hearing aid. Talk about commitment issues - Earth's relationship with Mars rovers is just a summer fling compared to Voyager's eternal lonely journey into the void. *sadness beep* indeed.