• PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.
• Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space -- the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.
• Perhaps no one on Earth will relish the moment more than 76-year-old Ed Stone, who has toiled on the project from the start.
• "We're anxious to get outside and find what's out there," he said.
• When NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth's grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.
• Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.
• Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way -- the space between stars. Once it plows through, scientists expect a calmer environment by comparison.
• When that would happen is anyone's guess. Voyager 1 is in uncharted celestial territory. One thing is clear: The boundary that separates the solar system and inter

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