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Voyager 2 Position Calculator

Compute the position of Voyager 2 for any date and time between 1 January 2013 and 30 December 2099 and visualize the results on an interactive sky map.

Voyager 2 is an unmanned space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, just a few weeks before its sister craft Voyager 1. Its mission was to study the outer planets of our solar system, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It was the first and only spacecraft to visit all four planets, and its observations revolutionized our understanding of these distant worlds. After completing its primary mission, Voyager 2 continued on its journey into interstellar space, where it is still sending back data on the interstellar medium and the heliosphere. Voyager 2 is currently the second most distant human-made object from Earth, after its sister craft Voyager 1, and continues to be in communication with NASA's Deep Space Network.

Voyager 2 is currently in the constellation of Pavo , at a distance of 20,364,270,108 kilometers from Earth.

Today's rise, transit and set times of Voyager 2 from Greenwich, United Kingdom (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Today Voyager 2 is not visible from Greenwich, United Kingdom

• Voyager 2 is below the horizon from Greenwich, United Kingdom .
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If you need to access this information frequently for your observations, you can create a simple customized Quick Access page , so that you can easily bookmark it in your browser favorites or add a shortcut to your mobile phones' home screen.

• Position and finder charts (see also Where is Voyager 2? )
• Distance from Earth (see also How far is Voyager 2 from Earth? )
• When does Voyager 2 rise and set?
• Interactive orbit visualization . 3d visualization showing the orbit of Voyager 2 with respect to the major Solar System objects.
• 15 days ephemerides . Table showing celestial coordinates and magnitude of Voyager 2 for the past and next 7 days.
• Interactive sky chart . An online planetarium application that shows where to locate Voyager 2 in the sky from your location.
• Live position tracker . A high precision sky chart that uses real deep sky imagery to help locate Voyager 2 with your telescope or on your astrophotographies.

Voyager 2 Position and Finder Charts

Higher precision deep sky finder chart, 60 arcmin wide, showing where Voyager 2 is right now. Click on the image to see a more detailed fullscreen tracker view .

Also check out Where is Voyager 2? , a page that provides all the information needed to find Voyager 2 in the sky and additional links to sky charts.

Voyager 2 Distance from Earth

The distance of Voyager 2 from Earth is currently 20,364,270,108 kilometers, equivalent to 136.126738 Astronomical Units . Light takes 18 hours, 52 minutes and 7.8933 seconds to travel from Voyager 2 and arrive to us.

The following chart shows the distance of Voyager 2 from Earth as a function of time. In the chart the distance data is measured in Astronomical Units and sampled with an interval of 1 day.

Closest Approach of Voyager 2 to Earth

NOTE: values for the closest approach are computed with a sampling interval of 1 day.

Visualization of Voyager 2 Orbit

This 3d orbit diagram is a feature of our 3D Solar System Simulator and shows the orbit of Voyager 2 with respect of the Sun and the orbits of the major planets . The position of Voyager 2 and the planets along their orbits in this diagram accurately represents the current configuration of the objects in the Solar System. This is an experimental feature and it requires a WebGL enabled browser. Please provide us feedback !

Voyager 2 15 Days Ephemeris

The following table lists the ephemerides of Voyager 2 computed for the past and next 7 days, with a 24 hours interval. Click on each row of the table to locate Voyager 2 in our Online Planetarium at the chosen date.

Voyager 2 Ephemeris Calculator

Compute the position of Voyager 2 for any date and time between 1 January 2013 and 30 December 2099 and display the results on an interactive star map.

Voyager 1 and 2: The Interstellar Mission

An image of Neptune taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

NASA has beautiful photos of every planet in our solar system. We even have images of faraway Neptune , as you can see in the photo above.

Neptune is much too distant for an astronaut to travel there with a camera. So, how do we have pictures from distant locations in our solar system? Our photographers were two spacecraft, called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2!

An artist’s rendering of one of the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Earth in 1977. Their mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn —and beyond to the outer planets of our solar system. This was a big task. No human-made object had ever attempted a journey like that before.

The two spacecraft took tens of thousands of pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. The pictures from Voyager 1 and 2 allowed us to see lots of things for the first time. For example, they captured detailed photos of Jupiter's clouds and storms, and the structure of Saturn's rings .

Image of storms on Jupiter taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

Voyager 1 and 2 also discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io , and much more. Voyager 2 also took pictures of Uranus and Neptune. Together, the Voyager missions discovered 22 moons.

Since then, these spacecraft have continued to travel farther away from us. Voyager 1 and 2 are now so far away that they are in interstellar space —the region between the stars. No other spacecraft have ever flown this far away.

Where will Voyager go next?

Watch this video to find out what's beyond our solar system!

Both spacecraft are still sending information back to Earth. This data will help us learn about conditions in the distant solar system and interstellar space.

The Voyagers have enough fuel and power to operate until 2025 and beyond. Sometime after this they will not be able to communicate with Earth anymore. Unless something stops them, they will continue to travel on and on, passing other stars after many thousands of years.

Each Voyager spacecraft also carries a message. Both spacecraft carry a golden record with scenes and sounds from Earth. The records also contain music and greetings in different languages. So, if intelligent life ever find these spacecraft, they may learn something about Earth and us as well!

A photo of the golden record that was sent into space on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More about our universe!

Where does interstellar space begin?

Searching for other planets like ours

Play Galactic Explorer!

If you liked this, you may like:

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The remarkable twin Voyager spacecraft continue to explore the outer reaches of the solar system decades after they completed their surveys of the Outer Planets.  Launched in 1977 (September 5 for Voyager 1 (V1) and August 20 for Voyager 2 (V2), whose trajectory took it past Jupiter after Voyager 1), the spacecraft pair made many fundamental discoveries as they flew past Jupiter (March 1979 for V1, July 1979 for V2) and Saturn (November 1980 for V1, August 1981 for V2).  The path of Voyager 2 past Saturn was targeted so that it continued within the plane of the solar system, allowing it to become the first spacecraft to visit Uranus (January 1986) and Neptune (August 1989).  Following the Neptune encounter, both spacecraft started a new phase of exploration under the intriguing title of the Voyager Interstellar Mission.

Five instruments continue to collect important measurements of magnetic fields, plasmas, and charged particles as both spacecraft explore different portions of the solar system beyond the orbits of the planets.  Voyager 1 is now more than 118 astronomical units (one AU is equal to the average orbital distance of Earth from the Sun) distant from the sun, traveling at a speed (relative to the sun) of 17.1 kilometers per second (10.6 miles per second).  Voyager 2 is now more than 96 AU from the sun, traveling at a speed of 15.5 kilometers per second (9.6 miles per second).  Both spacecraft are moving considerably faster than Pioneers 10 and 11, two earlier spacecraft that became the first robotic visitors to fly past Jupiter and Saturn in the mid-70s.

This processed color image of Jupiter was produced in 1990 by the U.S. Geological Survey from a Voyager image captured in 1979. The colors have been enhanced to bring out detail. Zones of light-colored, ascending clouds alternate with bands of dark, descending clouds. The clouds travel around the planet in alternating eastward and westward belts at speeds of up to 540 kilometers per hour. Tremendous storms as big as Earthly continents surge around the planet. The Great Red Spot (oval shape toward the lower-left) is an enormous anticyclonic storm that drifts along its belt, eventually circling the entire planet.

As seen in the night sky at Earth, Voyager 1 is within the confines of the constellation Ophiuchus, only slightly above the celestial equator; no telescope can see it, but radio contact is expected to be maintained for at least the next ten years.  Voyager 2 is within the bounds of the constellation Telescopium (which somehow sounds quite appropriate) in the far southern night sky.

Both spacecraft have already passed something called the Termination Shock † (December 2004 for V1, August 2007 for V2), where the solar wind slows as it starts to interact with the particles and fields present between the stars.  It is expected that both spacecraft will encounter the Heliopause, where the solar wind ceases as true interstellar space begins, from 10 to 20 years after crossing the Termination Shock.  Theories exist for what should be present in interstellar space, but the Voyagers will become the first man-made objects to go beyond the influences of the Sun, hopefully returning the first measurements of what it is like out there.  Each spacecraft is carrying a metal record with encoded sounds and sights from Earth, along with the needle needed to read the recordings, and simplified instructions for where the spacecraft came from, in case they are eventually discovered by intelligent extra-terrestrials.

Keep track of the Voyager spacecraft on the official  Voyager Interstellar Mission website or follow  @NASAVoyager2 on Twitter.    † The sun ejects a continuous stream of charged particles (electrons, protons, etc) that is collectively termed the solar wind.  The particles are traveling extremely fast and are dense enough to form a very tenuous atmosphere; the heliosphere represents the volume of space where the effects of the solar wind dominate over those of particles in interstellar space.  The solar wind particles are moving very much faster than the local speed of sound represented by their low volume density.  When the particles begin to interact with interstellar particles and fields (the interaction can be either physically running into other particles or experiencing an electromagnetic force resulting from a charged particle moving within a magnetic field), then they start to slow down.  The point at which they become subsonic (rather than their normal hypersonic speed) is the Termination Shock.

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Nasa’s voyager 2 probe enters interstellar space.

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA’s Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.

Members of NASA’s Voyager team will discuss the findings at a news conference at 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. PST) today at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. The news conference will stream live on the agency’s website .

Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1 , crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

The most compelling evidence of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment ( PLS ), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause. Until recently, the space surrounding Voyager 2 was filled predominantly with plasma flowing out from our Sun. This outflow, called the solar wind, creates a bubble – the heliosphere – that envelopes the planets in our solar system. The PLS uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind. The PLS aboard Voyager 2 observed a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles on Nov. 5. Since that date, the plasma instrument has observed no solar wind flow in the environment around Voyager 2, which makes mission scientists confident the probe has left the heliosphere.

In addition to the plasma data, Voyager’s science team members have seen evidence from three other onboard instruments – the cosmic ray subsystem, the low energy charged particle instrument and the magnetometer – that is consistent with the conclusion that Voyager 2 has crossed the heliopause. Voyager’s team members are eager to continue to study the data from these other onboard instruments to get a clearer picture of the environment through which Voyager 2 is traveling.

“There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena, California. 

Together, the two Voyagers provide a detailed glimpse of how our heliosphere interacts with the constant interstellar wind flowing from beyond. Their observations complement data from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer ( IBEX ), a mission that is remotely sensing that boundary. NASA also is preparing an additional mission – the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe ( IMAP ), due to launch in 2024 – to capitalize on the Voyagers’ observations.

“Voyager has a very special place for us in our heliophysics fleet,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “Our studies start at the Sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches. To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun’s influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory.”

While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have not yet left the solar system, and won’t be leaving anytime soon. The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud , a collection of small objects that are still under the influence of the Sun’s gravity. The width of the Oort Cloud is not known precisely, but it is estimated to begin at about 1,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and to extend to about 100,000 AU. One AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly 30,000 years to fly beyond it.

The Voyager probes are powered using heat from the decay of radioactive material, contained in a device called a radioisotope thermal generator ( RTG ). The power output of the RTGs diminishes by about four watts per year, which means that various parts of the Voyagers, including the cameras on both spacecraft, have been turned off over time to manage power.

“I think we’re all happy and relieved that the Voyager probes have both operated long enough to make it past this milestone,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “This is what we’ve all been waiting for. Now we’re looking forward to what we’ll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause.”

Voyager 2 launched in 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1, and both have traveled well beyond their original destinations. The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. However, as the mission continued, additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible. As the spacecraft flew across the solar system, remote-control reprogramming was used to endow the Voyagers with greater capabilities than they possessed when they left Earth. Their two-planet mission became a four-planet mission. Their five-year lifespans have stretched to 41 years, making Voyager 2 NASA’s longest running mission.

The Voyager story has impacted not only generations of current and future scientists and engineers, but also Earth’s culture, including film, art and music. Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record of Earth sounds, pictures and messages. Since the spacecraft could last billions of years, these circular time capsules could one day be the only traces of human civilization.

Voyager’s mission controllers communicate with the probes using NASA’s Deep Space Network ( DSN ), a global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft. The DSN consists of three clusters of antennas in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia.

The Voyager Interstellar Mission is a part of NASA’s Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL built and operates the twin Voyager spacecraft. NASA’s DSN, managed by JPL, is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency, operates both the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of the DSN, and the Parkes Observatory, which NASA has been using to downlink data from Voyager 2 since Nov. 8.

For more information about the Voyager mission, visit:

More information about NASA’s Heliophysics missions is available online at:

Dwayne Brown / Karen Fox Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 301-286-6284 [email protected] / [email protected] Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected]

Voyagers Continues to Returns Data from The Edges of the Milky Way

More than two years after Voyager 2 looked Neptune's Great Dark Spot in the eye and darted past the frozen surface of its moon Triton, both Voyager spacecraft are continuing to return data about interplanetary space and some of our stellar neighbors near the edges of the Milky Way.

After the Voyager spacecraft flew by the four giant outer planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -- their mission might have been over. But, in fact, these 14-year-old twins are just beginning a new phase of their journey, called the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM).

As the Voyagers cruise gracefully in the solar wind, their fields, particles and waves instruments are studying the space around them while searching for the elusive heliopause -- the outer edge of our solar system.

The heliopause is the outermost boundary of the solar wind, where the interstellar medium restricts the outward flow of the solar wind and confines it within a magnetic bubble called the heliosphere. The solar wind is made up of electrically charged atomic particles, composed primarily of ionized hydrogen, that stream outward from the Sun. "The termination shock is the first signal that we are approaching the heliopause. It's the area where the solar wind starts slowing down," said Voyager Project Scientist and JPL's Director, Dr. Edward C. Stone. Mission scientists now anticipate that the spacecraft may cross the termination shock by the end of the century. Exactly where the heliopause is remains a mystery. Its long been thought to be located some 75 to 150 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. (One AU is equal to 150 million kilometers (93 million miles), or the distance from the Earth to the Sun.) Any speculation about where the heliopause is or what it is like, has come only from computer models and theories. "Voyager 1 is likely to return the first direct evidence from the heliopause and what lies beyond it," Stone said.

Yet the Voyagers are not sitting idly by as they wait to cross over into interstellar space. Both spacecraft are involved in an extensive program of ultraviolet astronomy that allows them to study active galaxies, quasars and white dwarf stars, in ways unlike any other spacecraft or telescope in existence.

Voyager's ultraviolet spectrometers are the only way scientists can currently observe celestial objects in a unique region in the short end of the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. "Voyager's instruments allow it to observe things at wavelengths that are for the most part unavailable to other spacecraft," said Dr. Jay Holberg, a member of Voyager's ultraviolet subsystem team.

The Voyagers have become space-based ultraviolet observatories and their unique location in the universe gives astronomers the best vantage point they have ever had for looking at celestial objects that emit ultraviolet radiation. "The light that Voyager is sensitive to has to be observed in outer space," said Holberg.

Voyager's ultraviolet instruments are best suited to study the two extreme phases of a star's life -- its birth and its death. Thus the Voyagers are currently gathering data on early blue stars as well as other white dwarf stars nearing the end of their lifetime. "Voyager is helping us get a better handle on exactly how much energy these hot stars emit," Holberg said.

Now that Voyager's primary mission of exploring the outer planets is over, there are fewer constraints on the science team when it comes to programming the spacecrafts' observations. "We can sit on these things for very long periods of time and watch these stars go through their phases," Holberg said.

Stars can be very active, but also unpredictable. "We don't know when a star will do something. If we want to sit there and wait, we can do it in the hopes that the star will go through an outburst and Voyager will be there to observe it," he continued. Voyager can now stare at an object for days and even weeks at a time to thoroughly map it and the region around it.

Since the beginning of the interstellar mission, the Voyager project has been conducting a guest observer program which allows astronomers from around the world to make proposals and apply for time to use the Voyager ultraviolet spectrometer in much the same way that astronomers apply for time at ground-based observatories. This program enables scientists to make simultaneous observations of the same object using Voyager and ground-based telescopes.

The cameras on the spacecraft have been turned off and the ultraviolet instrument is the only experiment on the scan platform that is still functioning. Voyager scientists expect to continue to receive data from the ultraviolet spectrometers at least until the year 2000. At that time, there will not be enough electrical power for the heaters to keep the ultraviolet instrument warm enough to operate.

Yet there are several other fields and particle instruments that can continue to send back data as long as the spacecraft stay alive. They include: the cosmic ray subsystem, the low-energy charged particle instrument, the magnetometer, the plasma subsystem, the plasma wave subsystem and the planetary radio astronomy instrument. Barring any catastrophic events, JPL should be able to retrieve this information for at least the next 20 and perhaps even the next 30 years.

"In exploring the four outer planets, Voyager has already had an epic journey of discovery. Even so, their journey is less than half over with more discoveries awaiting the first contact with interstellar space," Stone said. "The Voyagers revealed how limited our imaginations really were about our solar system, and I expect that as they continue toward interstellar space, they will again surprise us with unimagined discoveries of this never-before-visited place which awaits us beyond our planetary neighborhood."

Voyager 1 is now 7 billion kilometers (4.3 billion miles) from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity of 63,800 km/hr (39,700 mph). Voyager 2, traveling in the opposite direction from its twin, is 5.3 billion kilometers (3.3 billion miles) from Earth with a heliocentric velocity of 59,200 km/hr (36,800 mph).

The Voyager Interstellar Mission is managed by JPL and sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications, Washington, DC.

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After a 12.3 billion-mile 'shout,' NASA regains full contact with Voyager 2

Emily Olson

Ayana Archie

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored. NASA/Getty Images hide caption

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored.

Talk about a long-distance call.

NASA said it resumed full communications with the Voyager 2 on Friday after almost two weeks of silence from the interstellar spacecraft.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said a series of ground antennas, part of the Deep Space Network, registered a carrier signal from Voyager 2 on Tuesday. However, the signal was too faint.

A Deep Space Network facility in Australia then sent "the equivalent of an interstellar 'shout' " to the Voyager 2 telling it to turn its antenna back toward Earth. The signal was sent more than 12.3 billion miles away and it took 37 hours to get a response from the spacecraft, NASA said.

Scientists received a response at about 12:30 a.m. ET Friday. Voyager 2 is now operating normally, returning science and telemetry data, and "remains on its expected trajectory," NASA said.

NASA said Friday that it lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after "a series of planned commands" inadvertently caused the craft to turn its antenna 2 degrees away from the direction of its home planet.

NASA is keeping Voyager 2 going until at least 2026 by tapping into backup power

What might seem like a slight error had big consequences: NASA previously said it wouldn't be able to communicate with the craft until October, when the satellite would go through one of its routine repositioning steps.

"That is a long time to wait, so we'll try sending up commands several times" before October, program manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

These are the 4 astronauts who'll take a trip around the moon next year

Even if Voyager 2 had failed to reestablish communications until fall, the engineers expected it to stay moving on its planned trajectory on the edge of the solar system.

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018 — more than 40 years since it launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. To this day, Voyager 2 remains one of only two human-made objects to ever operate outside the heliosphere, which NASA defines as "the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun."

Its primary mission was to study the outer solar system, and already, Voyager 2 has proved its status as a planetary pioneer . Equipped with several imaging instruments, the spacecraft is credited with documenting the discovery of 16 new moons, six new rings and Neptune's "Great Dark Spot."

Voyager 2 Bids Adieu To The Heliosphere, Entering Interstellar Space

Voyager 2 is also carrying some precious cargo, like a message in a bottle, should it find itself as the subject of another world's discovery: a golden record containing a variety of natural sounds, greetings in 55 languages and a 90-minute selection of music.

Last month's command mix-up foreshadows the craft's inevitable end an estimated three years from now.

"Eventually, there will not be enough electricity to power even one instrument," reads a NASA page documenting the spacecraft's travels . "Then, Voyager 2 will silently continue its eternal journey among the stars."

Meanwhile, Voyager 2's sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, is still broadcasting and transmitting data just fine from a slightly farther vantage point of 15 billion miles away.

Correction Aug. 3, 2023

A previous version of this article implied that Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 2018 when, in fact, the spacecraft concluded its encounter with the planet and started heading toward Neptune in 1986. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018.

• Jet Propulsion Laboratory

We Finally Know What Happened When Voyager 2 Reached Interstellar Space

A few big takeaways from the craft's incredible journey.

• The spacecraft reached the interstellar boundary between our solar system and interstellar space in 2018. Voyager 1 reached the boundary in 2012.
• Both spacecraft were launched in 1977, and have far surpassed scientists' expectations.

Scientists have finally analyzed data from Voyager 2’s journey to interstellar space and discovered a number of surprising differences—plus a few strange similarities.

Voyager 1 and 2 launched in August and October of 1977, respectively, and set out to explore the far reaches of the solar system and beyond. The spacecraft have revealed a vast amount of insight into distant planets and snapped pictures of previously undiscovered moons. Still, more than 40 years after their launch, they continue to provide scientists with an unparalleled look at the universe.

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space. Last year, Voyager 2 joined its companion in the interstellar medium, reaching the boundary set 119 times the Earth–sun distance away from Earth. The transition from our solar system to interstellar space, the researchers say, may take less than a day to cross. The data from Voyager 2’s crossing was published November 4 in a series of five papers in Nature Astronomy .

The heliopause is the theoretical boundary at which the sun’s solar wind meets interstellar winds, which are shot out from supernovae that have exploded millions of years ago. Additionally, galactic cosmic rays try to flow into our solar system, but only 30 percent of these rays actually reach Earth. Voyager 1 and 2 were also able to study changes in the magnetic fields within and outside of our solar system.

The two spacecraft reached interstellar space during different periods of solar activity, meaning conditions along the boundary were markedly different. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary during the sun’s solar minimum, whereas Voyager 2 reached the boundary during the solar maximum, a period of heightened activity. Additionally, unlike its quicker counterpart, Voyager 2’s mission has largely taken place in Earth’s southern hemisphere.

The researchers also discovered that solar material was “leaking” out into the interstellar medium. “That was very different than what happened with Voyager 1, where hardly any material was leaking out,” said Tom Krimigis of John’s Hopkins’s Applied Physics Laboratory in an October 31 press conference.

In the case of Voyager 1, the team saw the opposite, where interstellar particles leaked into our solar system. The team hopes to reconvene to take a closer look at their data in the near future to understand how and why these particles slip out of the grasp of our solar system.

Another perplexing discovery? The direction of the magnetic fields both inside and outside of the heliopause is aligned, as was the case with Voyager 1. Leonard Burlaga of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center said scientists can dismiss the alignment of the magnetic fields once, but twice would be a remarkable coincidence. The strength of the magnetic field was stronger in interstellar space, the Voyager 2 found.

The scientists also discovered that the heliopause itself is much thinner and smoother than expected, and that the interstellar medium tucked close to the boundary layer, where solar and interstellar winds meet, is much hotter and unpredictable than expected. This newest research also revealed that the boundary layer itself may be more complex than initially thought, with multiple layers of different temperature, density, and speed.

Voyager 1 and 2 have roughly five years before they'll lose the use of their scientific instruments, said Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology during the press conference. "When the two voyagers were launched, the space age was only 20 years old, Stone said. "So it was hard to know at that time that anything could last over 40 years."

There's still a lot left to explore, and the data dump has sparked a desire to explore faster, farther, and deeper into interstellar space.

Jennifer Leman is a science journalist and senior features editor at Popular Mechanics, Runner's World, and Bicycling. A graduate of the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Science News and Nature. Her favorite stories illuminate Earth's many wonders and hazards.

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Where are they now.

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News | December 10, 2018

Nasa's voyager 2 probe enters interstellar space.

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA's Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere - the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.

Members of NASA's Voyager team will discuss the findings at a news conference at 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. PST) today at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. The news conference will stream live on the agency's website .

Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1 , crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information - moving at the speed of light - takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

The most compelling evidence of Voyager 2's exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment ( PLS ), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause. Until recently, the space surrounding Voyager 2 was filled predominantly with plasma flowing out from our Sun. This outflow, called the solar wind, creates a bubble - the heliosphere - that envelopes the planets in our solar system. The PLS uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind. The PLS aboard Voyager 2 observed a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles on Nov. 5. Since that date, the plasma instrument has observed no solar wind flow in the environment around Voyager 2, which makes mission scientists confident the probe has left the heliosphere.

"Working on Voyager makes me feel like an explorer, because everything we're seeing is new," said John Richardson, principal investigator for the PLS instrument and a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "Even though Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, it did so at a different place and a different time, and without the PLS data. So we're still seeing things that no one has seen before."

In addition to the plasma data, Voyager's science team members have seen evidence from three other onboard instruments - the cosmic ray subsystem, the low energy charged particle instrument and the magnetometer - that is consistent with the conclusion that Voyager 2 has crossed the heliopause. Voyager's team members are eager to continue to study the data from these other onboard instruments to get a clearer picture of the environment through which Voyager 2 is traveling.

"There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Together, the two Voyagers provide a detailed glimpse of how our heliosphere interacts with the constant interstellar wind flowing from beyond. Their observations complement data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer ( IBEX ), a mission that is remotely sensing that boundary. NASA also is preparing an additional mission - the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe ( IMAP ), due to launch in 2024 - to capitalize on the Voyagers' observations.

"Voyager has a very special place for us in our heliophysics fleet," said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. "Our studies start at the Sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches. To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun's influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory."

While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have not yet left the solar system, and won't be leaving anytime soon. The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud , a collection of small objects that are still under the influence of the Sun's gravity. The width of the Oort Cloud is not known precisely, but it is estimated to begin at about 1,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and to extend to about 100,000 AU. One AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly 30,000 years to fly beyond it.

The Voyager probes are powered using heat from the decay of radioactive material, contained in a device called a radioisotope thermal generator ( RTG ). The power output of the RTGs diminishes by about four watts per year, which means that various parts of the Voyagers, including the cameras on both spacecraft, have been turned off over time to manage power.

"I think we're all happy and relieved that the Voyager probes have both operated long enough to make it past this milestone," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "This is what we've all been waiting for. Now we're looking forward to what we'll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause."

Voyager 2 launched in 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1, and both have traveled well beyond their original destinations. The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. However, as the mission continued, additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible. As the spacecraft flew across the solar system, remote-control reprogramming was used to endow the Voyagers with greater capabilities than they possessed when they left Earth. Their two-planet mission became a four-planet mission. Their five-year lifespans have stretched to 41 years, making Voyager 2 NASA's longest running mission.

The Voyager story has impacted not only generations of current and future scientists and engineers, but also Earth's culture, including film, art and music. Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record of Earth sounds, pictures and messages. Since the spacecraft could last billions of years, these circular time capsules could one day be the only traces of human civilization.

Voyager's mission controllers communicate with the probes using NASA's Deep Space Network ( DSN ), a global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft. The DSN consists of three clusters of antennas inGoldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia.

The Voyager Interstellar Mission is a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL built and operates the twin Voyager spacecraft. NASA's DSN, managed by JPL, is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's national science agency, operates both the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of the DSN, and the Parkes Observatory, which NASA has been using to downlink data from Voyager 2 since Nov. 8.

For more information about the Voyager mission, visit:

• https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

More information about NASA's Heliophysics missions is available online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/sunearth

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected] Dwayne Brown / Karen Fox NASA Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 301-286-6284 [email protected] / [email protected]

News Release: 2018-283

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 in a way that makes sense

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.

The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data last November. Flight controllers traced the blank communication to a bad computer chip and rearranged the spacecraft’s coding to work around the trouble.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California declared success after receiving good engineering updates late last week. The team is still working to restore transmission of the science data.

It takes 22 1/2 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away in interstellar space. The signal travel time is double that for a round trip.

Contact was never lost, rather it was like making a phone call where you can’t hear the person on the other end, a JPL spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 has been exploring interstellar space — the space between star systems — since 2012. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 12.6 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) away and still working fine.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Hubble Provides Interstellar Road Map for Voyagers’ Galactic Trek

NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our solar system. Along the way, they are measuring the interstellar medium, the mysterious environment between stars. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is providing the road map – by measuring the material along the probes’ future trajectories. Even after the Voyagers run out of electrical power and are unable to send back new data, which may happen in about a decade, astronomers can use Hubble observations to characterize the environment through which these silent ambassadors will glide.

A preliminary analysis of the Hubble observations reveals a rich, complex interstellar ecology, containing multiple clouds of hydrogen laced with other elements. Hubble data, combined with the Voyagers, have also provided new insights into how our sun travels through interstellar space.

“This is a great opportunity to compare data from in situ measurements of the space environment by the Voyager spacecraft and telescopic measurements by Hubble,” said study leader Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. “The Voyagers are sampling tiny regions as they plow through space at roughly 38,000 miles per hour. But we have no idea if these small areas are typical or rare. The Hubble observations give us a broader view because the telescope is looking along a longer and wider path. So Hubble gives context to what each Voyager is passing through.”

The astronomers hope that the Hubble observations will help them characterize the physical properties of the local interstellar medium. “Ideally, synthesizing these insights with in situ measurements from Voyager would provide an unprecedented overview of the local interstellar environment,” said Hubble team member Julia Zachary of Wesleyan University.

The team’s results will be presented Jan. 6 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas.

NASA launched the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977. Both explored the outer planets Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune.

The pioneering Voyager spacecraft are currently exploring the outermost edge of the sun’s domain . Voyager 1 is now zooming through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying stars.

Voyager 1 is 13 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest human-made object ever built. In about 40,000 years, after the spacecraft will no longer be operational and will not be able to gather new data, it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 10.5 billion miles from Earth, and will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in about 40,000 years.

For the next 10 years, the Voyagers will be making measurements of interstellar material, magnetic fields and cosmic rays along their trajectories. Hubble complements the Voyagers’ observations by gazing at two sight lines along each spacecraft’s path to map interstellar structure along their star-bound routes. Each sight line stretches several light-years to nearby stars. Sampling the light from those stars, Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measures how interstellar material absorbs some of the starlight, leaving telltale spectral fingerprints.

Hubble found that Voyager 2 will move out of the interstellar cloud that surrounds the solar system in a couple thousand years. The astronomers, based on Hubble data, predict that the spacecraft will spend 90,000 years in a second cloud and pass into a third interstellar cloud.

An inventory of the clouds’ composition reveals slight variations in the abundances of the chemical elements contained in the structures. “These variations could mean the clouds formed in different ways, or from different areas, and then came together,” Redfield said.

An initial look at the Hubble data also suggests that the sun is passing through clumpier material in nearby space, which may affect the heliosphere, the large bubble containing our solar system that is produced by our sun’s powerful solar wind. At its boundary, called the heliopause, the solar wind pushes outward against the interstellar medium. Hubble and Voyager 1 made measurements of the interstellar environment beyond this boundary, where the wind comes from stars other than our sun.

“I’m really intrigued by the interaction between stars and the interstellar environment,” Redfield said. “These kinds of interactions are happening around most stars, and it is a dynamic process.”

The heliosphere is compressed when the sun moves through dense material, but it expands back out when the star passes through low-density matter. This expansion and contraction is caused by the interaction between the outward pressure of the stellar wind, composed of a stream of charged particles, and the pressure of the interstellar material surrounding a star.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. The Voyagers were built by JPL, which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech.

For images and more information about the local interstellar medium and Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For more information about the Voyager mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/voyager

For additional information, contact:

Felicia Chou NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. 202-358-0257 [email protected]

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514 [email protected]  /  [email protected]

Elizabeth Landau Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6425 [email protected]

Seth Redfield Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 860-685-3669 [email protected]

Related Terms

• Astrophysics
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Hubble Space Telescope

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Voyager 1 is sending data back to Earth for the first time in 5 months

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For the first time in five months, NASA engineers have received decipherable data from Voyager 1 after crafting a creative solution to fix a communication problem aboard humanity’s most distant spacecraft in the cosmos.

Voyager 1 is currently about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, and at 46 years old, the probe has shown multiple quirks and signs of aging in recent years.

The latest issue experienced by Voyager 1 first cropped up in November 2023, when the flight data system’s telemetry modulation unit began sending an indecipherable repeating pattern of code .

Voyager 1’s flight data system collects information from the spacecraft’s science instruments and bundles it with engineering data that reflects its current health status. Mission control on Earth receives that data in binary code, or a series of ones and zeroes.

But since November, Voyager 1’s flight data system had been stuck in a loop. While the probe has continued to relay a steady radio signal to its mission control team on Earth over the past few months, the signal did not carry any usable data.

The mission team received the first coherent data about the health and status of Voyager 1’s engineering systems on April 20. While the team is still reviewing the information, everything they’ve seen so far suggests Voyager 1 is healthy and operating properly.

“Today was a great day for Voyager 1,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL, in a statement Saturday. “We’re back in communication with the spacecraft. And we look forward to getting science data back.”

The breakthrough came as the result of a clever bit of trial and error and the unraveling of a mystery that led the team to a single chip.

Troubleshooting from billions of miles away

After discovering the issue, the mission team attempted sending commands to restart the spacecraft’s computer system and learn more about the underlying cause of the problem.

The team sent a command called a “poke” to Voyager 1 on March 1 to get the flight data system to run different software sequences in the hopes of finding out what was causing the glitch.

On March 3, the team noticed that activity from one part of the flight data system stood out from the rest of the garbled data. While the signal wasn’t in the format the Voyager team is used to seeing when the flight data system is functioning as expected, an engineer with NASA’s Deep Space Network was able to decode it.

The Deep Space Network is a system of radio antennae on Earth that help the agency communicate with the Voyager probes and other spacecraft exploring our solar system.

The decoded signal included a readout of the entire flight data system’s memory.

By investigating the readout, the team determined the cause of the issue: 3% of the flight data system’s memory is corrupted . A single chip responsible for storing part of the system’s memory, including some of the computer’s software code, isn’t working properly. While the cause of the chip’s failure is unknown, it could be worn out or may have been hit by an energetic particle from space, the team said.

The loss of the code on the chip caused Voyager 1’s science and engineering data to be unusable.

Since there was no way to repair the chip, the team opted to store the affected code from the chip elsewhere in the system’s memory. While they couldn’t pinpoint a location large enough to hold all of the code, they were able to divide the code into sections and store it in different spots within the flight data system.

“To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole,” according to an update from NASA . “Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the (flight data system) memory needed to be updated as well.”

After determining the code necessary for packaging Voyager 1’s engineering data, engineers sent a radio signal to the probe commanding the code to a new location in the system’s memory on April 18.

Given Voyager 1’s immense distance from Earth, it takes a radio signal about 22.5 hours to reach the probe, and another 22.5 hours for a response signal from the spacecraft to reach Earth.

On April 20, the team received Voyager 1’s response indicating that the clever code modification had worked, and they could finally receive readable engineering data from the probe once more.

Exploring interstellar space

Within the coming weeks, the team will continue to relocate other affected parts of the system’s software, including those responsible for returning the valuable science data Voyager 1 is collecting.

Initially designed to last five years, the Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and are the longest operating spacecraft in history. Their exceptionally long life spans mean that both spacecraft have provided additional insights about our solar system and beyond after achieving their preliminary goals of flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune decades ago.

The probes are currently venturing through uncharted cosmic territory along the outer reaches of the solar system. Both are in interstellar space and are the only spacecraft ever to operate beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Voyager 2, which is operating normally, has traveled more than 12.6 billion miles (20.3 billion kilometers) from our planet.

Over time, both spacecraft have encountered unexpected issues and dropouts, including a seven-month period in 2020 when Voyager 2 couldn’t communicate with Earth. In August 2023, the mission team used a long-shot “shout” technique to restore communications with Voyager 2 after a command inadvertently oriented the spacecraft’s antenna in the wrong direction.

The team estimates it’s a few weeks away from receiving science data from Voyager 1 and looks forward to seeing what that data contains.

“We never know for sure what’s going to happen with the Voyagers, but it constantly amazes me when they just keep going,” said Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd, in a statement. “We’ve had many anomalies, and they are getting harder. But we’ve been fortunate so far to recover from them. And the mission keeps going. And younger engineers are coming onto the Voyager team and contributing their knowledge to keep the mission going.”

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NASA’s Voyager 1 resumes sending data to Earth after 5 months

• Published: Apr. 23, 2024, 5:53 p.m.
• Ryan Mancini | [email protected]

In the depths of space, the spacecraft Voyager 1 continued sending usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems back to Earth, according to a statement from NASA.

Voyager 1 , the most distant human-made object in existence, stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, the statement released on Monday read. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, confirmed the problem was “tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem,” NASA said.

This subsystem is critical in packaging the science and engineering data before all the data goes back to Earth, the space agency continued. The team at JPL found that one chip responsible for storing part of the subsystem’s memory did not work, which rendered all of the data unusable and the code was too large to place in one new location.

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The team chose to “divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the” subsystem,” NASA said. On April 18, the team moved the spacecraft’s engineering data to a new location within the subsystem.

“A radio signal takes about 22 and a half hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 and a half hours for a signal to come back to Earth,” NASA said in its statement. “When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.”

In the weeks ahead, the team at JPL will relocate and adjust any other affected parts of the subsystem software, the agency said.

Voyager 1′s twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, continues to function normally, NASA said. Like its twin, Voyager 2 the only other spacecraft to fly into interstellar space. Both were launched in 1977.

Aboard both probes are phonograph records called The Golden Records that each carry time capsules “intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials,” according to NASA. Material placed on the records was chosen for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan .

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I-95 closed in Norwalk, Connecticut after tanker fire. What to know about driving around the area.

By Tony Aiello , Lori Bordonaro , Mark Prussin

Updated on: May 3, 2024 / 2:20 PM EDT / CBS New York

NORWALK, Conn. --  I-95 in Norwalk, Connecticut is closed in both directions and will not reopen for several days after a fuel truck crashed and burst into flames  under an overpass Thursday morning. 

Officials called it a chain-reaction crash. Just before dawn, a car swerved in front of a truck pulling a flatbed trailer as a fuel tanker approached the Fairfield Avenue overpass  just past Exit 15 south . 

"To avoid it, this tractor-trailer swerved to the right and he hit the other tractor-trailer, which ripped open the back of his gasoline tanker," said Stephen Shay, with the Norwalk Fire Department. 

Work began early Friday morning to demolish the damaged overpass . Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said crews will use shears to lift it, which could take at least 24 hours.  

Watch video from Chopper 2 over the demolition early Friday morning.

State of emergency in Connecticut

Lamont has declared a state of emergency as drivers struggle to navigate detours, meaning a standstill for traffic and a slowdown for business.

"I worry about supply chain issues ... I think it will definitely impact the local merchants," Lamont said.

Local roads were a chaotic mess as thousands of drivers traveling one of the busiest interstates in the U.S. are being diverted around the accident scene.

Northbound lanes are closed to all traffic at exit 14, and southbound lanes are closed at exit 15. Travelers are advised to use I-84 as an alternate route through the state.

Metro-North has extra crews on call in case additional trains are needed.

Norwalk Public Schools are closed Friday because of potential traffic backups. All practices are canceled through the weekend, but athletic games, drama performances and proms are still allowed to take place.

Connecticut officials are urging employers to let employees work from home if possible.

I-95 overpass must be demolished

Flames spread down the highway and roasted the overpass. The fire caused significant damage to the structure and the gas, phone and cable utility lines running underneath it. 

"This bridge is less than 10 years old, but the damage was pretty severe due to the amount of gasoline that was in the tanker. It ignited directly underneath the bridge structure. The seal did begin to overheat and warp," a Connecticut Department of Transportation official said at a news conference . "Unfortunately, it's not able to be safely reopened in either direction underneath that bridge."

"The bridge was damaged, the heat from the burning fuel compromised some of the bridge, so that bridge is going to have to come down," Lamont said.

Later, he said on X, "The overpass near Exit 15 on I-95 in Norwalk needs to be demolished and the road needs to be repaved. Expect this area of the highway to remain closed through at least Monday. Avoid driving in the area."

State emergency management director Bill Turner said, "Anyone that drives into that area, in that geographical footprint, will receive a wireless alert on their cell phone advising them to avoid the area."

The closed stretch of I-95 serves 160,000 vehicles per day, according to the governor's office. 

Click here to watch Chopper 2 over the scene

"The traffic jams are horrendous" 

"Thank God no serious injuries, but it has resulted in the closing of I-95 North and South and that is incredible in terms of the traffic jams and what's happening there," said Lamont. 

Hours after the fire was put out, the charred remnants of two trucks and a passenger vehicle sat on the shuttered highway between Exits 15 and 16. 

Northbound lane closures  started at Exit 13 in Darien , according to the Connecticut Department of Transportation.  

"I know what an incredible inconvenience this is for people and all I can ask you to do is stay away from that area as best you can. The traffic jams are horrendous," said Lamont. 

Drivers from Bridgeport to Port Chester, New York received text alerts to avoid I-95 and trucking companies were told to use I-87 and I-84 instead, Lamont said. 

"For a lot of truckers, we are on the clock. So we can only work 14 hours and drive 11 hours. So this impact, it slows down the delivery time for our loads," said Avril Jenerette, a trucker. 

Drivers should expect delays on the Merritt Parkway, which trucks are not allowed on, while crews work to clear 95.

"Our highways team is working closely with Connecticut's DOT on the tanker fire that has closed I-95 in Norwalk. Please heed local authorities on detours and avoid the area if possible. Thank you to the first responders who are dealing with the fire and keeping other drivers safe," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg posted on social media. 

Thousands of gallons of fuel spilled

The truck was carrying 8,500 gallons of fuel and 75% either burned or spilled onto the highway, officials said. 

Hazmat crews responded to the spill and had concerns about material getting into the Norwalk River, but testing revealed no impact on air or water quality. 

• Fairfield County

Tony Aiello serves as a CBS2 general assignment reporter with a focus on covering news and breaking stories in the Northern Suburbs.

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2024 WWE Backlash card, date, matches, rumors, start time, match card, location, live stream

The promotion is heading to france for its first ppv event after the massive success of wrestlemania 40.

WWE is taking Backlash overseas in 2024. The card takes place on Saturday from LDLC Arena in Lyon, France and is the first major event to follow this year's massive WrestleMania 40 event.

The card is shaping up with five matches announced thus far, including both men's world championships and the WWE women's world title. Undisputed WWE universal champion Cody Rhodes will defend the title against AJ Styles in a long-awaited first-time encounter. World heavyweight champion Damian Priest already has a challenger lined up for the event after Jey Uso won a No. 1 contender match. Bayley will have twice as much to worry about as she defends her title against Naomi and Tiffany Stratton in a triple-threat match.

The other match of note sees a new set of The Bloodline -- Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga -- take on Kevin Owens and Randy Orton. Sikoa took out his brother Jimmy Uso as he brought in Tonga in a move to seemingly take over the group in Roman Reigns' absence. Now, they are set for their first in-ring action against the new pair of Owens and Orton, who came up short against Logan Paul in a triple threat at WrestleMania 40 for the U.S. title.

There are still many more bouts to be announced, but let's get to it and look at what we know -- and what we think -- will happen at Backlash, which streams live on Peacock on May 4 beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET.

2024 WWE Backlash matches

World Heavyweight Championship -- Damian Priest (c) vs. Jey Uso:  Priest became champion at WrestleMania 40, finally cashing in his Money in the Bank contract seconds after Drew McIntyre defeated Seth Rollins to claim the title. A little assist from CM Punk led to Priest's first run as world champion that night. McIntyre has no intention of letting this slide but, for now, Priest's primary responsibility is his first test as champion. Uso earned the title shot by winning a fatal four-way match on Raw, a match that ended when Punk again interfered to screw over McIntyre.

Undisputed WWE Universal Championship -- Cody Rhodes (c) vs. AJ Styles:  Rhodes also had his crowning moment at WrestleMania 40, facing Roman Reigns for the second consecutive year and finally "finishing the story" by becoming champion. He found his first challenger in Styles, who beat LA Knight in the finals of a mini-tournament to crown a top contender. Rhodes and Styles are Internet darlings who defined themselves outside of WWE before becoming promotional champions. They're among the top in-ring workers and should produce fireworks at Backlash.

WWE Women's Championship -- Bayley (c) vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Naomi: Bayley opted to have her first WWE women's title defense against her close friend Naomi. Rising superstar Stratton refused to sit on the sidelines and intervened in the match. Stratton succeeded in being a thorn in their sides, leading to a triple-threat title match at Backlash.

WWE Women's Tag Team Championships -- Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) vs. Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill: Belair and Cargill have a mental edge over the champions after teaming with Naomi to beat Damage CTRL at WrestleMania 40. The ongoing tension between Kabuki Warriors and their new rivals spurred a tag team title match at Backlash.

Kevin Owens and Randy Orton vs. The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga): Sikoa seems like a promising leader but Backlash will be his chance to prove it. Sikoa has taken over the family by force in Roman Reign's absence, removing Jimmy Uso from the group and introducing Bullet Club alum Tonga. Sikoa and Tonga will team for the first time against two former world champions. Owens quickly found himself at the top of Sikoa's hitlist but a bail out from friend and rival Orton set the stage for this big tag match.

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Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos fundraise for University of Michigan women’s health

• Updated: May. 03, 2024, 2:05 a.m. |
• Published: May. 02, 2024, 2:41 p.m.

• Samuel Dodge | [email protected]

FRANKLIN, MI - This week was Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’ 28th wedding anniversary. Ripa decided what she wanted to do was bring Consuelos in front of a crowd of women for a University of Michigan women’s health fundraiser.

“I thought what better way to celebrate life then to bring him to an estrogen festival,” Ripa told a crowd of more than 100 the morning of May 2 at the Michigan Medicine Women’s Health Luncheon.

The couple and co-hosts of the show “Live with Kelly and Mark” opened the fundraiser at Franklin Hills Country Club in Oakland County. Parents of a current Wolverine student, the two revved up the crowd at the event aiming to raise $700,000.

Ripa was the luncheon’s keynote speaker last year , talking about her family’s connection to the University of Michigan since their son Joaquin Consuelos became a varsity wrestler three years ago. Mark Consuelos told the crowd Thursday that the love for the university is “in his bones” since becoming a Wolverine parent.

“Being at University of Michigan has been such a blessing to us,” he said. “Not only the school, but we feel like the whole state of Michigan has welcomed us every time.”

As news has spread of the couple’s Wolverine ties, more studio audience members have started to wear maize and blue, they said. Ripa joked that she hears a “Go Blue” everywhere, even when the couple enjoyed an outdoor trip to a remote part of Iceland.

“It’s gonna sound crazy, because it was winter and dark,” she said. “We’re paddling out on the ocean to see if we can see whales, but instead we saw a person who yelled ‘Go Blue’ at us. The one person we saw in four days!”

Last year’s luncheon raised $596,000, according to Michigan Medicine officials. The goal this year was $700,000, said Luanne Thomas Ewald, chief operating officer of C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s hospitals.

The final tally surpassed the goal, as day-of-giving and a live auction resulted in about $750,000, officials said.

Guests mingle during the Michigan Medicine Women’s Health Luncheon at Franklin Hills Country Club in Franklin, Mich. on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com

Ewald said the money will go to a women’s health innovation fund, which aims to jumpstart the work of junior researchers to explore areas such as prenatal care and music therapy.

“An idea may not get funded by the National Institutes of Health because it may have not been fleshed out yet,” Ewald said. “So we get them some money to go after some research to try to help with moving women’s health forward.”

Some issues such as prenatal care haven’t been significantly reexamined since the 1970s, Ewald said, so funding research is necessary to push the field forward.

Some of the fundraising came from live auctions, which included items like a one-week trip to Siesta Key to sharing a suite at Michigan Stadium with Ripa and Consuelos.

Organizing the luncheon at Franklin Hills is an effort to reach out to university and Michigan Medicine donors in Oakland County, Ewald said.

“We do so many things at the Big House that we’re like ‘Let’s take this on the road,’” she said.

For Ripa and Consuelos, their son is entering his final year as an undergraduate next fall. Since Joaquin has become a student, Consuelos commented that all Wolverine sports are on a tear, from football’s national championship to hockey’s trio of Frozen Four’s.

“Mark actually said to me last time, ‘I feel like I’m personally responsible for all these wins,’” Ripa said.

“I said something like that,” Consuelos said.

The couple finished remarks by saying they hope their son will go to graduate school, joking that it could spur more sports success.

If you would like more reporting like this delivered free to your inbox, click here and signup for our weekly newsletter: Michigan Schools.

Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page or sign up for the free “ 3@3 Ann Arbor ” daily newsletter.

Stories by Samuel Dodge

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• Your A to Z guide for University of Michigan Commencement 2024
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• Jesse Owens set world records at University of Michigan. A new plaque will honor him.

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