On September 5, 1977, NASA launched a space probe named cruise 1 in the universe. Nearly 45 years later, to the astonishment of astronomers around the world, this bird is still alive as it travels far and wide. Pluto.
In fact, Voyager 1 has traveled a lot leave the border Our Solar System – Now Giving Strange Readings That Scientists Are Hard To Understand.
The mystery may have something to do with the fact that Voyager 1 is the furthest artificial object in space. At 14.5 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 passed through the heliosphere in 2012 sun It is the barrier that separates the solar wind from the interstellar medium, or all the matter and radiation in space between the different solar systems in the galaxy. This means that Voyager 1 is literally located in the interstellar vacuum of the Milky Way.
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This might have something to do with why era Jimmy Carter The machine sends out a signal that is best described as odd.
“The interstellar rover is operating normally, receiving and executing orders from Earth, along with collecting and returning scientific data.” NASA explains on its website. “But the readings from the Expression Probe Position and Control System (AACS) do not reflect what is actually happening on board.”
“We are also in interstellar space – a highly radioactive environment that a spacecraft has never flown before.”
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More specifically, NASA explains, AACS keeps the spacecraft’s antenna pointed toward Earth thereby sending data back to our planet. On the surface, the AACS system appears to be working anyway, but all the telemetry data that is sent back is invalid, as it appears to be randomly generated or physically impossible. This begs the question.
“An enigma like this is equivalent to a cycle at this point in the Voyager mission,” Susan Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. “The spacecraft is about 45 years old, which is way beyond what mission planners expected.”
Dodd added, “We are also in interstellar space – a highly radioactive environment where no spacecraft has ever flown before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there is a way to solve this problem with AACS, our team will find it.”
Related: The Voyager 1 probe is now so far away that it can hear the background “buzz” of interstellar space
This won’t be a quick fix. Signals from Earth currently take 20 hours 33 minutes to reach Voyager 1 and vice versa. Both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 twins suffer from diminishing power supplies, forcing engineers to turn off parts to save as much as possible. Some expect Voyager 1 to be able to continue transmitting data until 2025, after which time its thermoelectric radioisotope (RTG) generators won’t be able to muster enough power to keep their equipment running.
Even if Voyager 1 proves to be in its late stages sooner than expected, it still has a historic flight. Like being flown by the gas giant Jupiter Dan SaturnAs well as Saturn’s largest moon TitanI get detailed images and an unprecedented amount of data. The Voyager probes are known to contain so-called “golden records” (actually two vinyl records) that preserve Earth’s culture for any extraterrestrial who might stumble and swallow them. The gold-plated discs include everything from nature sounds to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Chuck Berry.
In fact, the Voyage 1 probe is now so far out in space that astronomers can do it Listen to “hum” literally produced by our solar system as spacecraft travel beyond it.
Stella Koch-Uker, a doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy and Cornell’s Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, told Salon at the time about the study by the lead author. “We observed a faint and persistent hum of interstellar gas.”
One of the senior authors – James Cordes, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University – told Salon that “interstellar media are like calm or gentle rain. In a solar flare, it’s like seeing a thunderbolt burst in a thunderstorm and then come back as a drizzle.”
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