After a brief stretch of quiet, Voyager 1, the spacecraft that has journeyed the farthest from Earth of any human-made object, has established contact again.
Scientists were perplexed when Voyager 1 ceased transmitting signals back to Earth on October 19 of last month.
On October 24, NASA successfully reconnected with the probe using a radio that hadn’t been used since 1981. On November 18, Voyager 1 started transmitting data from its four science instruments that were still in operation using its original radio system.
Voyager 1: What is it?
Since its launch on September 5, 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been moving farther and farther into deep space, and it is currently 15.4 billion miles from Earth. In order to extend its lifespan, the lone spaceship has been progressively turning down non-essential systems as its power steadily runs out.
Now, where is Voyager 1?
In 1979, Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and its moons, then in 1980, it passed the Saturn system. Since then, the spacecraft has been speeding into space, and on August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause—the line where the sun’s effect ends—to become the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space.
Now, the probe is sending data about the interstellar medium, such as particle concentrations, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays. Voyager 1 uses the Deep Space Network (DSN) to connect to Earth. Because of the great distance between the probe and our planet, signals take around 23 hours to travel in a single direction.
The reason for the October communication loss was that the probe’s X-band radio transmitter, which it uses to talk to the DSN, was switched off. This occurred when on October 16, NASA tried to turn on one of the probe’s heaters, which caused the probe’s fault prevention mechanism to cut off the radio in order to save power.
Three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) power Voyager 1, producing electricity from the heat produced by radioactive decay. However, as the plutonium inside these RTGs decays, their power output decreases annually.
“If the spacecraft overdraws its power supply, fault protection will conserve power by turning off systems that aren’t essential for keeping the spacecraft flying,” according to a statement released by NASA in October.
NASA then linked to the probe and Voyager 1 began utilizing its S-band transmitter, which hadn’t been utilized since the 1980s.
“The probe had unexpectedly turned off its primary radio transmitter, called an X-band transmitter, a nd turned on the much weaker S-band transmitter,” NASA stated in a statement.
“The mission crew was unable to obtain science data and details on the spacecraft’s technical state because of this move.
By November 18, the probe was able to transmit data back to Earth again after turning on the X-band transmitter again.
“Earlier this month, the team reactivated the X-band transmitter and then resumed collecting data the week of Nov. 18 from the four operating science instruments,” stated NASA.
Launched in 1977, @NASAVoyager carries a Golden Record with images, greetings, nature sounds, and music from our planet.
— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2022
While we celebrate music tonight on Earth, we’re wondering: What songs would you send to the cosmos? https://t.co/rrgRyifhcD#Grammys pic.twitter.com/dWoF14APbG
Unfortunately, this innovative probe won’t be around for long. The spaceship won’t have enough power to run its sensors or speak to Earth by the middle of the 1930s, so it will continue to travel around the cosmos in quiet.
Since Voyager 1 has not yet crossed the enormous Oort Cloud that envelops the sun and every planet in our solar system, it is technically still in our solar system.
“It will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it,” according to NASA.
As a communication to possible extraterrestrial civilizations, Voyager 1 includes a gold-plated gramophone record with music, natural sounds, encoded pictures, and greetings in 55 languages.
Voyager 1 is predicted to get within 1.6 light-years of Gliese 445, a neighboring star in the Camelopardalis constellation, in around 40,000 years.
Also Read: How can NASA have found galaxies that are older than the universe?
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