NASA’s Voyager 2 probe sent a heartbeat signal to Earth following mission control Unintentionally cut the contactThe US space agency announced Tuesday.
Launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets and serve as a beacon of humanity to the wider universe, it is currently more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from our planet – well beyond the solar system.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that Voyager 2 antenna was accidentally angled two degrees towards Earth by a planned command sent on July 21. In a recent update, it was said.
This left it unable to transmit data or receive commands to its mission control – a situation that was not expected to be resolved until it conducted an automated re-orientation maneuver on October 15.
But on Tuesday, Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told AFP the team enlisted the help of the Deep Space Network – an international array of giant radio antennas, plus a few that orbit Earth – in a last-ditch effort to re-establish contact sooner.
She said, “We were surprised to see that the spacecraft sent a ‘heartbeat signal’. “We know the spacecraft has a heartbeat and is operating.” This lifted our spirits.
But while engineers can now see a heartbeat – in technical terms, the carrier wave associated with Voyager 2 – they can’t yet read the information signal that shapes the carrier wave, which conveys all the data collected by the spacecraft.
Dodd continued, saying that there was only a “low likelihood” of success.
NASA will continue to try and send these commands, despite the fact that October 15 is still a long time away.
Golden Record
NASA Heliophysics System Observatory is now responsible for the Voyager missions. JPL was the company that built and operated the spacecraft.
Voyager 2 Left the protective magnetic bubbleThe heliosphere is the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, and it was created in December 2018. It currently travels through the space between stars.
It explored our solar system before leaving it JupiterSaturn and became first and only spacecraft so far to visit UranusNeptune.
Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 were the first human spacecraft to reach interstellar media in 2012; they are currently located at a distance of almost 15 billion kilometers from Earth.
The Voyager spacecraft are both equipped with “Golden Records” – 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials.
The items include a solar system map, a piece uranium which acts as a radioactive timer allowing the recipient to date the launch of the spaceship, and symbols that explain how to play the vinyl record.
The record was selected by NASA’s committee, which is chaired Carl Sagan. It contains images encoded with information about life on Earth as well as music, sounds, and other audio files that can be played by using the stylus included.
Voyagers are still transmitting scientific data for now. However, their batteries will eventually run out, around 2025.
In silence, they will continue to roam the Milky Way for all eternity.
