- Become A Member
- Gift Membership
- Kids Membership
- Other Ways to Give
- Explore Worlds
- Defend Earth
How We Work
- Education & Public Outreach
- Space Policy & Advocacy
- Science & Technology
- Global Collaboration
Our Results
Learn how our members and community are changing the worlds.
Our citizen-funded spacecraft successfully demonstrated solar sailing for CubeSats.
Space Topics
- Planets & Other Worlds
- Space Missions
- Space Policy
- Planetary Radio
- Space Images
The Planetary Report
The eclipse issue.
Science and splendor under the shadow.
Get Involved
Membership programs for explorers of all ages.
Get updates and weekly tools to learn, share, and advocate for space exploration.
Volunteer as a space advocate.
Support Our Mission
- Renew Membership
- Society Projects
The Planetary Fund
Accelerate progress in our three core enterprises — Explore Worlds, Find Life, and Defend Earth. You can support the entire fund, or designate a core enterprise of your choice.
- Strategic Framework
- News & Press
The Planetary Society
Know the cosmos and our place within it.
Our Mission
Empowering the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration.
- Explore Space
- Take Action
- Member Community
- Account Center
- Eclipse 2024
- “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan
Bruce Murray Space Image Library
Highest resolution Voyager 1 color view of the Great Red Spot
The color in this mosaic was rather difficult to process. The WAC filters are significantly different from the corresponding NAC filters and the left/right edges are not covered by all three WAC filters. There are also some areas in the NAC mosaic where only green or violet was available (especially near the corners of the NAC area). The color is somewhat less accurate there.
For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser .
Voyager 1's Historic Flyby of Jupiter in Photos
On March 5, 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter , the largest planet in the solar system, in a historic encounter with the largest planet in our solar system. The photos of Jupiter beamed back by Voyager 1 were amazing, as was the science they returned. See Voyager 1's most amazing photos of Jupiter and its moons in our gallery here.
Parts of a Whole
Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977 to explore the cosmos. Voyager 1 took a series of images of Jupiter, which were compiled to create this mosaic of one entire hemisphere of the planet.
While the two spacecraft were originally designed for a five-year mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn, their successes and reliability allowed for additional exploration of Uranus, Neptune and more.
Credit: JPL
Standing Out in the Cosmos
Voyager 1 took three separate photos, using three different color filters, of Jupiter this day in 1979. Back on Earth in the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the images were combined, creating this colorful and breathtaking view of the Jovian planet.
Credit: JPL/NASA
A Planet and Two Moons
Io, Europa and Jupiter pose for a family photo. Io seems almost caught in Jupiter's Great Red Spot and glows with a very different color from Europa. Europa, on the other hand gives away very little detail about its composition with a glance from such a distance.
Jupiter's Night Light(s)
From within Jupiter's shadow Voyager 1 sent home this image detailing the planet's north pole, an aurora in action and possibly even some lightning. The image itself was taken over a long exposure of 3 minutes, 12 seconds with a wide angle camera.
A Window Inside?
Researchers believe this large brown oval, which was imaged Mar. 2, 1979, could allow a view into lower cloud levels of Jupiter if studied more closely.
Just above the brown spot lies the pale orange North Temperate Belt bordered to the south by the high speed North Temperate Current which moves with wind speeds up to 260 mi/hr (120 meters/sec).
A Big Ol' Spot
In early March 1979, Voyager 1 collected this image of the Great Red Spot and some other surrounding atmospheric activity. The smallest white ovals featured are 20 miles (30 km) across, some of which were observed four decades ago, at formation. The different disturbances in Jupiter's atmosphere move around the planet at different speeds.
Such Beautiful Contrast
Just below Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the planet's atmosphere has a great variation of textures and patterns. Using special computer processing, these details are enhanced to enable study in hopes of deepening understanding of the Jovian atmosphere.
Ring Around the Jupiter
On Mar. 4, 1979, this multiple exposure image provided the first evidence of a ring around the Jovian planet. Stars in the image appear as broken hairpins resulting from Voyager 1's motion during the more than 11 minute exposure. The image successfully completed it mission of searching for such rings at Jupiter.
The Galilean Moons of Jupiter
In 1610, Galileo Galilei observed these four moons orbiting Jupiter. As a result, the group is referred to as the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. Shown here the relative sizes are compared — Io, on the top left; Europa, on the top right; Ganymede, on the bottom left; and Callisto, on the bottom right.
Ganymede and Callisto are larger than planet Mercury while Io and Europa are similar in size to Earth's moon. Io consists of active volcanoes and likely has a sulfurous composition. Ganymede and Callisto appear to consist mainly of water and water ice. Europa's make up is still largely a mystery waiting to be solved.
Active Volcanoes
To create this image of Jupiter's Io, several photos of the moon were snapped by Voyager 1 on Mar. 4, 1979. Centered on the moon a circular element has been connected to an known erupting volcano while across the image similar features can be identified. Io is the first-known body, other than Earth, where active volcanism has been seen.
Photobomber
While mapping Jupiter, Io snuck into the frame. Voyager 1 captured the side of the moon Jupiter never sees, revealing never-before-seen details of the Jovian satellite: several circles with dark centers and bright rims may be craters unknown on the moon until now. Without further study, researchers won't know if they are impact of volcanic craters.
Surprising Natural Colors
A color image of Jupiter's closest Galilean moon, Io, stuns viewers with its rich colors. Scientists believe the orange and red hues arise from sulfur compounds, salts and other volcanic sublimates. While volcanic craters and lava flows may explain the dark spots across the image.
Loki, In Detail
The detailed structure of Loki, a volcano on Jupiter's Io, visualized clearly here in a Voyager 1 image. In this photo, the majority of the eruptive activity emanated from the possible rift in the dark linear feature. Also, a u-shaped "lava-lake" component reveals strange details, possibly solid sulfur "icebergs" in a liquid sulfur lake. This region claimed the hottest area on this moon at about 150 degrees Celsius.
Activity Afar
An active plume near the Loki volcano shines off the horizon of Io. The mosaic also presents views of fallout deposits from the active plume Pele at the heart-shaped feature to the southeast of Loki.
Credit: JPL/USGS/NASA
Small but Not Insignificant
The smallest of the Galilean moons, Europa displays bright areas, surmised to be ice deposits, and darker spots expected to be rocky surfaces. Long linear structures across the northern hemisphere are features unique on the satellite. One theory suggests these lines could be fractures or faults in the moon's surface.
Similar but Not the Same
From about 2.6 million miles (4.2 million km) away, Voyager 1 snapped this image of Ganymede. Though larger than planet Mercury, the moon is much less dense. Ganymede, while reminiscent of Earth's moon, is four times as bright. Scientists speculate the Jovian moon could have areas, such as the north polar region, covered in water frost creating the brightness seen here.
Explaining the Sights
Several bright impact craters glow brightly in Voyager 1's image of Ganymede from Mar. 5, 1979. Many older impact craters, missing their rays, are visible as well. Some of the erosion may be caused by faulting of the surface materials.
Strange Patterns
Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede was imaged by Voyager 1 on Mar. 5, 1979. The image reveals intricate patterns of ridges and grooves. Scientists believe these features to be deformations in the satellite's thick icy crust.
A Trio of Info
Three images of Jupiter's Callisto combine to create this high resolution photo of the satellite. A large basin-like feature, discovered by Voyager 1, appears clearly on the upper left area of the moon. Across the center of this basin a brighter contrast is seen. Researchers believe these shining areas contain more clean ice as compared to the majority of Callisto's "dirty-ice" surface.
A Triad of Data
A mosaic of Callisto came from three different spacecraft. Voyager 1 contributed the left-side image and Voyager 2 provided the right-side image, both collected in 1979. The third, central portion originated from Galileo in September of 1996.
Credit: JPL/DLR/NASA
A Peak at What's Inside
March 6, 1979, Voyager 1 snapped this image of Callisto, one of Jupiter's largest moons, from almost 200,000 km away. The central focus of the image shows the complex circular structure that mirrors impact basins seen on Earth's moon and planet Mercury. Experts believe the patterns on Callisto demonstrate the planet's low density and lack of internal strength.
Christine Lunsford joined the Space.com team in 2010 as a freelance producer and later became a contributing writer, covering astrophotography images, astronomy photos and amazing space galleries and more. During her more than 10 years with Space.com, oversaw the site's monthly skywatching updates and produced overnight features and stories on the latest space discoveries. She enjoys learning about subjects of all kinds.
NASA gets $25.4 billion in White House's 2025 budget request
'Interstellar meteor' vibrations actually caused by a truck, study suggests
I'm driving 6 hours through New York's Adirondacks to see the 2024 total solar eclipse from Potsdam. Here's why.
Most Popular
By All About Space magazine May 28, 2023
By Fran Ruiz May 06, 2023
- 2 Total solar eclipse 2024: Live updates
- 3 This Week In Space podcast: Episode 105 — Apoc-eclipse 2024!
- 4 Total solar eclipse 2024: Here's the national weather forecast for April 8
- 5 William Shatner is beaming in to see the 2024 total solar eclipse from Indiana (video)
First-Ever Solar System Family Portrait (1990)
The Solar System "family portrait" is the final series of 60 images captured by NASA's Voyager 1 that show six of our solar system's planets. It remains the first and only time — so far — a spacecraft has attempted to photograph our home solar system. Only three spacecraft have been capable of making such an observation from such a distance: Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.
The Family Portrait
In February 1990, Voyager 1 was speeding out of the solar system — beyond Neptune and about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun — when mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time. It snapped a series of 60 images that were used to create the first “family portrait” of our solar system.
The image series contatains the famous image that would become known as the Pale Blue Dot, revealing Earth was a tiny dot within a scattered ray of sunlight. Voyager 1 was so far away that — from its vantage point — Earth was a crescent about a pixel.
In addition to Earth, Voyager 1 captured images of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus. Mars was obscured by scattered sunlight bouncing around in the camera and Mercury was too close to the Sun, and dwarf planet Pluto was too tiny, too far away and too dark to be detected.
The images gave humans an awe-inspiring and unprecedented view of their home world and its neighbors. Like Earth, each planet appears as just a speck of light (Uranus and Neptune appear elongated due to spacecraft motion during their 15-second camera exposures).
"The family portrait is a symbol what NASA exploration is really about: Seeing our world in a new and bigger way," Dr. Thomas H. Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in 2018.
The family portrait remains the first and only time a spacecraft has attempted to photograph our home solar system. Only three spacecraft have been capable of making such an observation from such a distance: Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.
About the Photographer
Voyager 1 was launched Sept. 5, 1977, just days after its twin — Voyager 2 — on Aug. 20. Because it was on a faster route to the mission's first encounter, at Jupiter, Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977. (This was the reason for the order of their naming.)
Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on Nov. 12, 1980.
After snapping the Pale Blue Dot and other “family photos,” — at 05:22 GMT, Feb. 14, 1990 — Voyager 1 powered off its cameras forever. Mission planners wanted to save its energy for the long journey ahead.
In August 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space . It’s now the most distant human-made object ever.
Sep 4, 2023
jpg (827.35 KB)
Highest-Resolution
tif (11.72 MB)
Enlarged Planets
tif (11.20 MB)
Suggested Searches
- Climate Change
- Expedition 64
- Mars perseverance
- SpaceX Crew-2
- International Space Station
- View All Topics A-Z
Humans in Space
Earth & climate, the solar system, the universe, aeronautics, learning resources, news & events.
2024 Total Solar Eclipse Broadcast
Eclipses Near and Far
Scientists Pursue the Total Solar Eclipse with NASA Jet Planes
- Search All NASA Missions
- A to Z List of Missions
- Upcoming Launches and Landings
- Spaceships and Rockets
- Communicating with Missions
- James Webb Space Telescope
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Why Go to Space
- Astronauts Home
- Commercial Space
- Destinations
- Living in Space
- Explore Earth Science
- Earth, Our Planet
- Earth Science in Action
- Earth Multimedia
- Earth Science Researchers
- Pluto & Dwarf Planets
- Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
- The Kuiper Belt
- The Oort Cloud
- Skywatching
- The Search for Life in the Universe
- Black Holes
- The Big Bang
- Dark Energy & Dark Matter
- Earth Science
- Planetary Science
- Astrophysics & Space Science
- The Sun & Heliophysics
- Biological & Physical Sciences
- Lunar Science
- Citizen Science
- Astromaterials
- Aeronautics Research
- Human Space Travel Research
- Science in the Air
- NASA Aircraft
- Flight Innovation
- Supersonic Flight
- Air Traffic Solutions
- Green Aviation Tech
- Drones & You
- Technology Transfer & Spinoffs
- Space Travel Technology
- Technology Living in Space
- Manufacturing and Materials
- Science Instruments
- For Kids and Students
- For Educators
- For Colleges and Universities
- For Professionals
- Science for Everyone
- Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers
- STEM Engagement at NASA
- NASA's Impacts
- Centers and Facilities
- Directorates
- Organizations
- People of NASA
- Internships
- Our History
- Doing Business with NASA
- Get Involved
- Aeronáutica
- Ciencias Terrestres
- Sistema Solar
- All NASA News
- Video Series on NASA+
- Newsletters
- Social Media
- Media Resources
- Upcoming Launches & Landings
- Virtual Events
- Sounds and Ringtones
- Interactives
- STEM Multimedia
Expedition 71
NASA’s LRO Finds Photo Op as It Zips Past SKorea’s Danuri Moon Orbiter
Hubble Peers at Pair of Closely Interacting Galaxies
NASA Astronaut Loral O’Hara, Expedition 70 Science Highlights
Diez maneras en que los estudiantes pueden prepararse para ser astronautas
Optical Fiber Production
How NASA Spotted El Niño Changing the Saltiness of Coastal Waters
Earth Day Toolkit
Veronica T. Pinnick Put NASA’s PACE Mission through Its Paces
NASA’s NEOWISE Extends Legacy With Decade of Near-Earth Object Data
Harnessing the 2024 Eclipse for Ionospheric Discovery with HamSCI
How NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Measure Ages of Stars
NASA’s Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy
Amendment 8 A.44 Earth Action: Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team Final Text and Due Dates.
Introduction to Spectrum
NASA Langley Team to Study Weather During Eclipse Using Uncrewed Vehicles
NASA Noise Prediction Tool Supports Users in Air Taxi Industry
ARMD Solicitations
Tech Today: Synthetic DNA Diagnoses COVID, Cancer
David Woerner
Tech Today: Cutting the Knee Surgery Cord
NASA Partnerships Bring 2024 Total Solar Eclipse to Everyone
NASA, Salisbury U. Enact Agreement for Workforce Development
NASA Wallops to Launch Three Sounding Rockets During Solar Eclipse
Astronauta de la NASA Marcos Berríos
Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023
Voyager 1 image of saturn.
Voyager 1 looked back at Saturn on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after the spacecraft flew past the planet, to observe the appearance of Saturn and its rings from this unique perspective. A few of the spokelike ring features discovered by Voyager appear in the rings as bright patches in this image, taken at a distance of 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 million miles) from the planet. Saturn’s shadow falls upon the rings, and the bright Saturn crescent is seen through all but the densest portion of the rings. From Saturn, Voyager 1 is on a trajectory taking the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane, away from the Sun and eventually out of the solar system (by about 1990). Although its mission to Jupiter and Saturn is nearly over (the Saturn encounter ends Dec. 18, 1980), Voyager 1 will be tracked by the Deep Space Network as far as possible in an effort to determine where the influence of the Sun ends and interstellar space begins. Voyager 1’s flight path through interstellar space is in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. Voyager 2 will reach Saturn on August 25, 1981, and is targeted to encounter Uranus in 1986 and possibly Neptune in 1989. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Image Credt: NASA/JPL
Voyager 1 to Take Pictures of Solar System Planets
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its mission along with Voyager 2 to explore the outer planets, will use its cameras February 13-14 to take an unprecedented family portrait of most of the planets in our solar system.
The collection of images will be from a unique point-of-view -- looking down on the solar system from a position 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane in which the planets orbit the Sun. No other spacecraft has ever been in a position to attempt a similar series of photos of most of the planets.
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth. The Voyager spacecraft are controlled by and their data received at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
"This is not just the first time, but perhaps the only time for decades that we'll be able to take a picture of the planets from outside the solar system," said Voyager Project Scientist Dr. Edward C. Stone of Caltech. No future space missions are planned that would fly a spacecraft so high above the ecliptic plane of the solar system, he said.
Starting shortly after 5 p.m. (PST) on Feb. 13 and continuing over the course of four hours, Voyager 1 will point its wide- and narrow-angle cameras at Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth and Venus. Mercury is too close to the Sun to be photographed by Voyager's cameras, and Pluto is too far away and too small to show up in images taken by the spacecraft. Beginning with the dimmest of the targets - Neptune -- and working toward the Sun, Voyager 1 will shutter about 64 images of the planets and the space between them.
The constellation Eridanus (The River), stretching behind the planets from Voyager 1's perspective, will provide the backdrop for the images.
Due to the schedules of several spacecraft being tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), the images will be recorded on board Voyager 1 and played back to DSN receivers on Earth in late March. The Voyager imaging team estimates that processing the images to reveal as much detail as possible will take several weeks. Most of the planets will appear as relatively small dots (about one to four pixels, or picture elements, in the 800-by-800 pixel frame of one Voyager image).
The enormous scale of the subject matter makes it unlikely that the entire set of images can be mosaicked to produce for publication a single photograph showing all the planets. Even an image covering the planets out to Jupiter would easily fill a poster-sized photographic print. At the least, imaging team hopes to assemble a mosaicked image composed of the frames showing Earth, Venus and perhaps Mars together.
Voyager 1, rather than Voyager 2, received the solar system photo assignment largely because of Voyager 1's improved viewpoint of the planets.
Voyager 1 completed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, respectively. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune last August. Both are now on missions that will take the spacecraft to the boundary of our solar system and into interstellar space.
According to Voyager engineers and scientists, the only potential damage from pointing the cameras toward the Sun is that the shutter blades of the wide-angle camera might warp. There are no plans, however, to use Voyager 1's cameras after the solar system photo series is completed.
The Voyager mission is conducted by Caltech's JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications.
- Mobile Site
- Staff Directory
- Advertise with Ars
Filter by topic
- Biz & IT
- Gaming & Culture
Front page layout
Hope returns —
Nasa knows what knocked voyager 1 offline, but it will take a while to fix, "engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the fds to operate normally.".
Stephen Clark - Apr 6, 2024 12:28 am UTC
Engineers have determined why NASA's Voyager 1 probe has been transmitting gibberish for nearly five months, raising hopes of recovering humanity's most distant spacecraft.
Voyager 1, traveling outbound some 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth, started beaming unreadable data down to ground controllers on November 14. For nearly four months, NASA knew Voyager 1 was still alive—it continued to broadcast a steady signal—but could not decipher anything it was saying.
Confirming their hypothesis, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California confirmed a small portion of corrupted memory caused the problem. The faulty memory bank is located in Voyager 1's Flight Data System (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft. The FDS operates alongside a command-and-control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing.
The FDS duties include packaging Voyager 1's science and engineering data for relay to Earth through the craft's Telemetry Modulation Unit and radio transmitter. According to NASA, about 3 percent of the FDS memory has been corrupted, preventing the computer from carrying out normal operations.
Optimism growing
Suzanne Dodd, NASA's project manager for the twin Voyager probes, told Ars in February that this was one of the most serious problems the mission has ever faced. That is saying something because Voyager 1 and 2 are NASA's longest-lived spacecraft. They launched 16 days apart in 1977, and after flying by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 is flying farther from Earth than any spacecraft in history. Voyager 2 is trailing Voyager 1 by about 2.5 billion miles, although the probes are heading out of the Solar System in different directions.
Normally, engineers would try to diagnose a spacecraft malfunction by analyzing data it sent back to Earth. They couldn't do that in this case because Voyager 1 has been transmitting data packages manifesting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros. Still, Voyager 1's ground team identified the FDS as the likely source of the problem.
The Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing when it was developed five decades ago. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to use volatile memory. Most of NASA's missions operate with redundancy, so each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers. But the backup FDS on Voyager 1 failed in 1982.
Due to the Voyagers' age, engineers had to reference paper documents, memos, and blueprints to help understand the spacecraft's design details. After months of brainstorming and planning, teams at JPL uplinked a command in early March to prompt the spacecraft to send back a readout of the FDS memory.
The command worked, and Voyager.1 responded with a signal different from the code the spacecraft had been transmitting since November. After several weeks of meticulous examination of the new code, engineers pinpointed the locations of the bad memory.
"The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn’t working," NASA said in an update posted Thursday. "Engineers can’t determine with certainty what caused the issue. Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years."
Voyager 1's distance from Earth complicates the troubleshooting effort. The one-way travel time for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 from Earth is about 22.5 hours, meaning it takes roughly 45 hours for engineers on the ground to learn how the spacecraft responded to their commands.
NASA also must use its largest communications antennas to contact Voyager 1. These 230-foot-diameter (70-meter) antennas are in high demand by many other NASA spacecraft , so the Voyager team has to compete with other missions to secure time for troubleshooting. This means it will take time to get Voyager 1 back to normal operations.
"Although it may take weeks or months, engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data again," NASA said.
reader comments
Channel ars technica.
NASA's Ingenious Efforts to Restore Voyager 1's Interstellar Communications on May,2022
V oyager 1, the venerable space probe and humanity’s most distant emissary, has encountered a communication hurdle that has persisted for months, leading to a valiant effort by NASA engineers to comprehend and rectify the anomaly.
For over 45 years, Voyager 1 has been gliding through the cosmos, and in its lifetime, it has delivered invaluable data on planets like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as a solitary image of Earth from the outskirts of our solar system. Yet, as it cruises over 15 billion miles from Earth, it faces a unique challenge: a breakdown in the way it communicates its observations and status back to ground control.
In May 2022, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers noticed the glitch when Voyager 1 began transmitting nonsensical data. This data, meant to inform mission controllers about the spacecraft’s operations and scientific findings, is crucial for the continuous assessment of the mission’s health and objectives. A JPL spokesperson highlighted the efforts made to resolve the issue: “The team continues information gathering and are preparing some steps that they’re hopeful will get them on a path to either understand the root of the problem and/or solve it.”
The glitch appears to be a discord between the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS) and its telemetry modulation unit (TMU). Normally, the FDS would collect and package data for transmission to Earth, but the TMU has been sending a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes, rendering the data unintelligible.
Despite this setback, the mission team has made a breakthrough. In March 2023, after sending a ‘poke’ to the spacecraft, a signal was received that stood out from the garbled data stream. A Deep Space Network engineer decoded this and found it contained a readout of the entire FDS’s memory, a potential treasure trove for diagnosing the problem.
The issue is compounded by the enormous distance signals must travel, taking approximately 22 hours each way, leading to a slow, iterative process of trial and error as engineers send commands and await the spacecraft’s response. It’s a process the JPL spokesperson described, noting, “After they do that, they spend a few days digesting the information they got, consulting old documents to see if they can make sense of the little bits of information they can glean from things (since the telemetry data itself is unusable), and then send another command.”
Despite the challenges, the mission team remains hopeful. The wealth of data collected before the communication breakdown continues to shed light on the conditions of interstellar space, and the Voyager probes’ ongoing journey into the cosmos is a testament to human ingenuity and curiosity.
As NASA’s engineers labor to parse the received memory readout and develop potential solutions, Voyager 1’s mission remains a symbol of human achievement. Although the issue remains unresolved, the data sent back before the problem began provides an extensive understanding of interstellar space, and the work to re-establish complete communication is evidence of NASA’s relentless pursuit of knowledge.
Relevant articles:
– NASA Is Still Fighting to Save Its Historic Voyager 1 … , Gizmodo, Mar 7, 2024
– Voyager 1 sends back surprising response after ‘poke’ from NASA , CNN
– NASA finds clue while solving Voyager 1’s communication breakdown case , Space.com
– How was contact restored between NASA and Voyager 2? Here’s all you need to know about the ‘shout’ across interstellar space which retrieved the spacecraft , economictimes.com
NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround.
For the past five months, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady stream of unreadable gibberish back to Earth. Now, NASA engineers finally know why.
The 46-year-old spacecraft sends regular radio signals as it drifts further from our solar system . But in November 2023, the signals suddenly became garbled, meaning scientists were unable to read any of its data, and they were left mystified about the fault's origins.
In March, NASA engineers sent a command prompt, or "poke," to the craft to get a readout from its flight data subsystem (FDS) — which packages Voyager 1's science and engineering data before beaming it back to Earth.
After decoding the spacecraft's response, the engineers have found the source of the problem: The FDS's memory has been corrupted.
Related: NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish
"The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn't working," NASA said in a blog post Wednesday (March 13) . "Engineers can't determine with certainty what caused the issue. Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years."
— NASA hears 'heartbeat' signal from Voyager 2 probe a week after losing contact
— Historic space photo of the week: Voyager 2 spies a storm on Saturn 42 years ago
— NASA reestablishes full contact with Voyager 2 probe after nail-biting 2-week blackout
Although it may take several months, the engineers say they can find a workaround to run the FDS without the fried chip — restoring the spacecraft's messaging output and enabling it to continue to send readable information from outside our solar system.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 zipped past Saturn and Jupiter in 1979 and 1980 before flying out into interstellar space in 2012. It is now recording the conditions outside of the sun's protective magnetic field , or heliosphere, which blankets our solar system.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes 22.5 hours for any radio signal to travel from the craft to our planet.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
The moon is getting its own time zone, White House memo to NASA reveals
Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball
Low tides reveal Bronze Age fortress that likely defended against Irish mainland
- TorbjornLarsson Bon voyage, Voyager! Reply
- Jay McHue What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪 Reply
Jay McHue said: What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪
admin said: Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround. NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system : Read more
sourloaf said: What does FSB mean?
Rusty Lugnuts said: Where are you seeing "FSB"? The closest thing I can see in the article is "FDS". In modern computers, FSB would most likely refer to the Fr0nt S1ide Bu5, though I have no idea if a system as old as Voyagers, let alone engineered so specifically, would have an FSB. (apparently I can't spell out "Fr0nt S1ide Bu5" or my post gets flagged as spam or inappropriate??)
- SkidWard Just cut the % of ram needed... skip the bad sectors Reply
- kloudykat FDS = fl1ght da1a sub5ystem5 Reply
- 5ft24dave This is pretty old news, like 6 months old. Are you guys just now discovering this? Reply
Commodore Browncoat said: That's about as sane a theory as many of the others that have become ridiculously popular in the past several years, so sure - why not? What reply do you think we should send?
- View All 10 Comments
Most Popular
By Sneha Khedkar April 05, 2024
By Ben Turner April 05, 2024
By Harry Baker April 05, 2024
By Laura Geggel April 05, 2024
By Elise Poore April 05, 2024
By Keumars Afifi-Sabet April 05, 2024
By Sascha Pare April 05, 2024
By Patrick Pester April 05, 2024
By Daisy Dobrijevic April 05, 2024
By Joanna Thompson April 05, 2024
- 2 James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
- 3 April 8 total solar eclipse: Everything you need to know
- 4 'Gambling with your life': Experts weigh in on dangers of the Wim Hof method
- 5 Cholesterol-gobbling gut bacteria could protect against heart disease
- 3 'Gambling with your life': Experts weigh in on dangers of the Wim Hof method
- 4 Cholesterol-gobbling gut bacteria could protect against heart disease
- 5 NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
More From Forbes
Nasa discovers source of voyager 1 glitch in interstellar space.
- Share to Facebook
- Share to Twitter
- Share to Linkedin
A NASA image of one of the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 ... [+] were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. (Photo by NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
NASA’s pioneering Voyager 1 spacecraft has a memory problem. The space agency has been troubleshooting the elderly machine since it began sending back gibberish communications in November. NASA hasn’t fixed Voyager 1 yet, but engineers now know what’s vexing the spacecraft.
The glitch paused Voyager 1’s science work and kicked off a long-distance diagnosis process. The team traced the issue to the flight data subsystem, a computer that talks to the spacecraft’s telemetry modulation unit to send science and engineering data to Earth. The data came back unintelligible. The culprit appears to be a single chip that’s part of the FDS.
The breakthrough came thanks to a “poke” NASA sent in March that prompted Voyager 1 to send back a readout of its FDS memory. “Using the readout, the team has confirmed that about 3% of the FDS memory has been corrupted, preventing the computer from carrying out normal operations,” NASA said in a statement on April 4.
Voyager 1’s position so far away from home creates a lot of challenges when it comes to fixing problems. NASA talks to the spacecraft over a distance of over 15 billion miles. It takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 and it takes an equally long time to receive a response. It’s troubleshooting in slow motion. It also means figuring out the exact cause of the glitch is mostly educated guesswork. It could be damage or it could be a matter of age. “Engineers can’t determine with certainty what caused the issue,” said NASA. “Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years.”
There’s reason for optimism, though Voyager 1 won’t make a quick recovery. “Although it may take weeks or months, engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data again,” NASA said.
iPad 2024 Apple Just Accidentally Revealed An All New Product It Seems
A psychologist explores the rise of hikikomori syndrome, caitlin clark iowa advance to ncaa championship game after controversial foul call.
Voyager 1 has made an unprecedented journey across space. It launched in 1977 on an initial mission to study our solar system and visit Jupiter and Saturn. That was just the beginning. The resilient spacecraft kept on going and eventually entered interstellar space in 2012. It was the first human-made object to venture into the unexplored territory outside our solar system. Voyager 1’s twin Voyager 2 crossed over into interstellar space in 2018.
NASA turned off some of Voyager 1’s science instruments as the spacecraft aged, but the probe has still been returning valuable data on interstellar space. If a fix works, Voyager 1 will get back into the swing of science and write yet another chapter in an epic story of exploration.
- Editorial Standards
- Reprints & Permissions
- The Contents
- The Making of
- Where Are They Now
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Q & A with Ed Stone
golden record
Where are they now.
- frequently asked questions
- Q&A with Ed Stone
Mission Status
Instrument status.
Where are the Voyagers now?
To learn more about Voyager, zoom in and give the spacecraft a spin. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
View Voyager
Space Flight Operations Schedule (SFOS)
SFOS files showing Voyager activity on Deep Space Network (DSN)
2024 Tracking Schedule
2023 tracking schedule, 2022 tracking schedule, 2021 tracking schedule, 2020 tracking schedule, 2019 tracking schedule, 2018 tracking schedule, 2017 tracking schedule, 2016 tracking schedule, 2015 tracking schedule, 2014 tracking schedule, 2013 tracking schedule, 2012 tracking schedule, 2011 tracking schedule, 2010 tracking schedule, 2009 tracking schedule, 2008 tracking schedule, 2007 tracking schedule, 2006 tracking schedule, 2005 tracking schedule, 2004 tracking schedule, 2003 tracking schedule, 2002 tracking schedule, 2001 tracking schedule, 2000 tracking schedule, 1999 tracking schedule, 1998 tracking schedule, 1997 tracking schedule, 1996 tracking schedule, 1995 tracking schedule, 1994 tracking schedule.
- Cast & crew
Back to Black
The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.
- Sam Taylor-Johnson
- Matt Greenhalgh
- Marisa Abela
- Eddie Marsan
- Jack O'Connell
- 1 Critic review
- Amy Winehouse
- Mitch Winehouse
- Blake Fielder-Civil
- Cynthia Winehouse
- Janis Winehouse
- Raye Cosbert
- Nick Shymansky
- A & R Manager
- Aunt Melody
- Perfume Paul
- CID Officer
- Uncle Harold
- Island Records Senior Executive
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
More like this
Technical specs
- Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes
Related news
Contribute to this page.
- See more gaps
- Learn more about contributing
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic.
Images Voyager Took. The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune before starting their journey toward interstellar space. Here you'll find some of those iconic images, including "The Pale Blue Dot" - famously described by Carl Sagan - and what are still the only up-close images of Uranus and Neptune.
The final images taken by the Voyagers comprised a mosaic of 64 images taken by Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990 at a distance of 40 AU of the Sun and all the planets of the solar system (although Mercury and Mars did not appear, the former because it was too close to the Sun and the latter because Mars was on the same side of the Sun as Voyager 1 so ...
Early Voyager 1 Images of Jupiter Full Resolution: TIFF (491.5 kB) JPEG (21.78 kB) 1996-09-26: Jupiter: Voyager: Imaging Science Subsystem: 400x400x3: PIA00029: First Close-up Image of Jupiter from Voyager ...
On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 probe snapped a photo of Earth from 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away. The image shows our home planet as it truly is — a tiny, lonely outpost of ...
Voyager was the first spacecraft to achieve this and captured the iconic image on Sept. 18, 1977, by Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and ...
Here are 10 things you might not know about Voyager 1's famous Pale Blue Dot photo. 1. Not in the Plan. Neither the " Family Portrait " nor the " Pale Blue Dot " photo was planned as part of the original Voyager mission. In fact, the Voyager team turned down several requests to take the images because of limited engineering resources ...
Image: NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk. Saturn as seen by Voyager 1 The last picture from Voyager 1's approach to Saturn in which the entire planet and ring system can be seen in a single frame. Image: NASA/JPL/Björn Jónsson. Voyager 2's best view of Enceladus This was the Voyager mission's best view of Enceladus, captured by Voyager 2 on August 26 ...
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, ... Real-time distance and velocity data is provided by NASA and JPL. At a distance of 162.7 ... Image of Voyager 1 ' s radio signal on February 21, 2013. In December 2017, ...
At ~6 km/pixel, this is the highest resolution pre-Juno color data for Jupiter (all of the higher resolution Voyager images are clear filter images). Lower resolution orange, green and violet images from Voyager 1's wide angle camera (WAC) are also used to show the GRS periphery and surrounding areas. Color, contrast, and sharpness have been ...
From about 2.6 million miles (4.2 million km) away, Voyager 1 snapped this image of Ganymede. Though larger than planet Mercury, the moon is much less dense. Ganymede, while reminiscent of Earth's ...
The Family Portrait. In February 1990, Voyager 1 was speeding out of the solar system — beyond Neptune and about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun — when mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time. It snapped a series of 60 images that were used to create the first "family portrait" of ...
Voyager 1 looked back at Saturn on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after the spacecraft flew past the planet, to observe the appearance of Saturn and its rings from this unique perspective. A few of the spokelike ring features discovered by Voyager appear in the rings as bright patches in this image, taken at a distance of 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 ...
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its mission along with Voyager 2 to explore the outer planets, will use its cameras February 13-14 to take an unprecedented family portrait of most of the planets in our solar system. The collection of images will be from a unique point-of-view -- looking down on the solar system from a position 32 ...
The Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing when it was developed five decades ago. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to use volatile memory. Most of NASA's missions operate ...
For over 45 years, Voyager 1 has been gliding through the cosmos, and in its lifetime, it has delivered invaluable data on planets like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as a solitary image of Earth ...
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 zipped past Saturn and Jupiter in 1979 and 1980 before flying out into interstellar space in 2012. It is now recording the conditions outside of the sun's protective ...
Images of Voyager. Get an in-depth look at the science instruments aboard the Voyager spacecraft, plus diagrams illustrating the spacecraft's trajectory, orbit and mechanics. Here you'll also find a number of artist's concepts explaining the anatomy of our solar system and the Voyagers' journey to reach interstellar space.
A NASA image of one of the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 ... [+] were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space.
This is a real-time indicator of Voyagers' distance from Earth in astronomical units (AU) and either miles (mi) or kilometers (km). Note: Because Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 1 is speeding away from the inner solar system, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of year.
Back to Black: Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson. With Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.