2023-08-01 13:06:04
It started almost half a century ago, but it still works. In fact, Voyager 2 is currently plowing through unknown interstellar space, beyond the Solar System. It has not been an easy road and, in fact, it is now in trouble: it cannot receive or transmit data to Earth as a result of a series of commands planned but sent “involuntarily” to the spacecraft, as explained by NASA. These instructions have caused the probe’s antenna to point at 2 degrees from Earth, which has reversed communications.
Voyager 2 is in interstellar space, nearly 19.9 billion kilometers from Earth, and this change has disrupted communication between Voyager 2 and the Deep Space Network (DSN) ground antennas. The data that the spacecraft sends no longer reaches the DSN and the spacecraft does not receive commands from the ground controllers.
Voyager 2, launched on August 20, 1977, is scheduled to reset its orientation several times a year to keep its antenna pointed at Earth; the next reset will occur on October 15, which should allow communication to resume. The mission team expects Voyager 2 to remain on its planned trajectory during this blackout period.
Voyager 1, which is almost 24,000 million kilometers) from Earth, continues to function normally.
A journey of thousands of years
Both Voyager probes have already passed the heliosphere, the area beyond the Solar System where the influence of the Sun can still be felt and about which almost nothing is known. Although the zone dominated by the solar wind extends to about 120 AUs, the region dominated by the Sun’s gravity could reach as far as 100,000 AUs, forming what is known as the Oort cloud, a field of debris almost undisturbed from birth. of our cosmic neighborhood.
Voyager probes plunge into the unknown at a rate of about three AUs per year. Scientists hope to be able to make measurements of the pure interstellar medium, uninfluenced by the Sun, before the plutonium-238 radioisotope generators on board run out, perhaps within this decade. Be that as it may, everything indicates that the Voyagers, already dead and turned off, will outlive humanity.
#historic #Voyager #spacecraft #cut #traveling #Solar #System