The most distant human-made object, Voyager 1 and 2, still sails through interstellar space more than 12 billion miles from Earth.
Both spacecraft, which were launched in 1977, were sent to explore the outer planets of our solar system. Voyager 2 left Earth first on August 20, followed shortly after by Voyager 1 on September 5.
Equipped with a 3.7-meter wide wireless antenna and several instruments to measure different types of electromagnetic radiation, charged particles, photons, and magnetic fields, Voyager 1 and 2 detected the roar of deep space, and were designed to send this data back. . By 1989, both probes had visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, revealing never-before-seen moons and rings around alien worlds.
NASA has made plans for astronomers to visit these planets.
The US space agency called it the Grand Tour, and proposed two sets of dual probes (one to study Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto, and the other to study Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune). Instead, Boffin halted his ambitions to use only one pair of spacecraft and gave up the idea of going to Pluto, which at the time was thought to be the farthest planet in the solar system.
Missions to venture deep into the solar system require a comfortable alignment of our system’s four outer planets, which occur once every 176 years, to aid in flight. It was impractical given the extra fuel that a spacecraft would have to carry for a purpose. Also, scientists have to spend more time waiting to travel to the next checkpoint.
Voyager 1 and 2 remain the only man-made objects we know to have reached the ice giants Neptune and Uranus.
The heliosphere is a giant elliptical plasma bubble blown by the solar wind, stretching more than 120 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth. Passing through the boundaries of the heliosphere has allowed scientists to measure the influence of the Sun on the solar system and to explore what space outside of the stars might look like.
“For the past 45 years, the Voyager missions have been critical to providing this knowledge and helping to change our understanding of the Sun and its effects in ways no other spacecraft can do,” said Nicola Fox, director of NASA’s Physics Division. He said in a statement.
“The Heliophysics mission fleet will move from understanding the corona and the outer part of the Sun’s atmosphere to studying the effects of the Sun on the entire Solar System, including here on Earth, in the atmosphere, and in interstellar space. the sun.”
Voyager 1 and 2 flew into different orbits and despite disagreement over the exact crossing point, they left the heliosphere in 2012 and 2018, respectively. Scientists helped discover that the solar wind intercepts about 70% of cosmic rays, redefining the shape and boundaries of our solar system.
Linda Spilker, deputy Voyager project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said:
“This is the first time we have been able to study how our star and the sun interact directly with extrasolar particles and magnetic fields, and it will help scientists understand local biology between stars. This will help us overturn many theories about this field, and provide important information for future missions.”
Using 1970s technology, each of Voyager’s sensors continued to record data using an eight-track tape player with three million times less memory than a typical modern smartphone, and 38,000 more than 5G. Sending information back to Earth at twice the speed.
After 45 years, the heyday of major scientific data collection is over. NASA is gradually turning off equipment to conserve energy so the probe can continue communicating with Earth for as long as possible.
Susan Dodd, Voyager Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said:
The probe has crossed the volcanic void outside the heliosphere, but technically it has not left the solar system yet. The probe will reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud within 300 years. The Oort cloud is an envelope of ice fragments that failed to coalesce into a planet. It takes 100 times to traverse a sea of random curiosity to finally reach the outside of the solar system.
If both probes survive, Voyager 1 will continue in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus and approach about 1.7 light-years from the stars in Ursa Major. On the other hand, Voyager 2 is heading towards the constellations Sagittarius and Pavo, and will also come within 1.7 light-years of Ross 248, the star of Andromeda.
Nobody knows what will happen to humanity at this point. If we go extinct, Voyager 1 and 2 hold what may be the best evidence for our existence. Both spacecraft offer special gifts to whoever finds them. The probe contains a copy of the Golden Record, a disc containing messages from Earth, including sounds such as birdsong and salutations in 55 languages.
Several books on anatomy, family photos, and pictures of famous landmarks such as the Taj Mahal are also stored on disk. Intelligent aliens must be able to learn about Earth and humanity if they can obtain a log and decode symbolic instructions on how to operate it.
Voyager Golden Record
But if we are still alive, I hope we will have mastered space travel and learned to send more and more probes to reach the depths of interstellar space. You may have found a way to access ®