where is voyager 1 heading towards

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Where is Voyager 1 Headed and When Will It Get There?

Question:   The Voyager 1 spacecraft has left our solar system and is now in interstellar space but where exactly is it heading now and at its present speed how long will it take to get there.  — David

Answer:   I found the answer to this question on the Voyager FAQ page .  From the information on this page you can learn that Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.5 Astronomical Units (AU: the average distance between the Earth and our Sun) per year along a direction that is 35 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Sun’s motion motion relative to nearby stars. Voyager 1 in headed in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. In the year 40,272 AD, Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor called AC+79 3888.

Just for your information, Voyager 2 is also escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.1 AU per year, 48 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the south toward the constellations of Sagitarrius and Pavo. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 2 will come within about 1.7 light years of a star called Ross 248 the constellation of Andromeda.

Finally, if you want to see a very cool graphic which shows the trajectory of the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons spacecraft out of our solar system, check out the Spacecraft Escaping the Solar System page produced by the folks at Heavens Above .

Jeff Mangum

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Science News

‘humanity’s spacecraft’ voyager 1 is back online and still exploring.

After five months of glitching, the spacecraft is talking to Earth again from interstellar space

The Voyager 1 spacecraft (illustrated) is back online after a few months of transmitting garbled data. It’s now poised to continue its exploration of interstellar space.

JPL-Caltech/NASA

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By Ramin Skibba

13 hours ago

After months of challenging trouble-shooting and suspenseful waiting, Voyager 1 is once again talking to Earth.

The aging NASA spacecraft, about 24 billion kilometers from home, began transmitting garbled data in November. On April 20, NASA scientists got the probe back online after uploading new flight software to work around a chunk of onboard computer memory that had failed. They’re now receiving data about the spacecraft’s health and hope to hear from its science instruments again in a few weeks, says Suzanne Dodd, the mission’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

That means the iconic craft could be on a path to recovery — and to continue its exploration of interstellar space.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 briefly visited Jupiter and Saturn before eventually departing the solar system. It and its twin, Voyager 2, are the longest-operating space probes, now tasked with studying far-flung solar particles and cosmic rays. In particular, the probes have been monitoring the changing of the sun’s magnetic field and the density of plasma beyond the solar system, yielding information about the farthest reaches of the sun’s influence .

“The spacecraft is really remarkable in its longevity. It’s incredible,” Dodd says. “We want to keep Voyager going as long as possible so we have this time record of these changes.”

Voyager 1 and 2, cruising along diverging paths, made history by crossing the heliopause in 2012 and 2018 , respectively ( SN: 9/12/13; SN: 12/10/18 ). At nearly 18 billion kilometers from the sun, that’s long been considered the outer extent of our star’s magnetic field and the solar wind, the boundary before interstellar space.

Since then, Dodd says, the science team has made some surprising findings ( SN: 11/4/19 ). For one, they’ve determined that the heliosphere, the huge bubble of space dominated by the solar wind, might not be spherical but have one or two tails, making it shaped like a comet or a croissant.

And thanks to Voyager, scientists now know that, despite expectations otherwise, the sun’s magnetic field and charged particles actually remain significant even beyond the heliopause, says David McComas, a Princeton University astrophysicist not involved in the mission.

Some theories predicted a serene environment in the distant oceans of interstellar space, but the Voyagers keep passing through waves of charged particles, indicating that the solar magnetic field still holds some sway there. What’s more, the probes’ data have shown how ripples in the field form bubbles at the edge of the solar system, which is more frothy and dynamic than expected.

Other missions have begun building on Voyager’s solar physics research. These include NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, and the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, which is set to launch next year. Earth-orbiting IBEX has been measuring high-energy particles to map the heliosphere for 15 years, whereas IMAP will orbit between the sun and Earth, giving it an uninterrupted view of the sun as it monitors the galactic cosmic rays that manage to filter through the heliosphere.

“There’s a huge synergy between the Voyagers and both IBEX and IMAP,” says McComas, principal investigator of the latter two missions. “We were all really scared when Voyager 1 stopped phoning home.”

It will be decades until another mission could accomplish what the Voyagers have done. NASA’s New Horizons soared by Pluto in 2015 and kept going ( SN:8/9/18 ). It’s heading toward the edge of the solar system, but it’s cruising slowly and will run out of power before it can collect data beyond the heliopause.

The Voyagers can fly forever, but power for their instruments is waning. Over the next few years, NASA will shut some down to conserve energy for the rest.

That means Voyager 1’s days of collecting science data are numbered. “It’s a very beloved mission,” Dodd says. “It’s humanity’s spacecraft, and we need to take care of it.”

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After months of silence, Voyager 1 has returned NASA’s calls

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For the last five months, it seemed very possible that a 46-year-old conversation had finally reached its end.

Since its launch from Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 5, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has diligently sent regular updates to Earth on the health of its systems and data collected from its onboard instruments.

But in November, the craft went quiet.

Voyager 1 is now some 15 billion miles away from Earth. Somewhere in the cold interstellar space between our sun and the closest stars, its flight data system stopped communicating with the part of the probe that allows it to send signals back to Earth. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge could tell that Voyager 1 was getting its messages, but nothing was coming back.

“We’re to the point where the hardware is starting to age,” said Linda Spilker, the project scientist for the Voyager mission. “It’s like working on an antique car, from 15 billion miles away.”

Week after week, engineers sent troubleshooting commands to the spacecraft, each time patiently waiting the 45 hours it takes to get a response here on Earth — 22.5 hours traveling at the speed of light to reach the probe, and 22.5 hours back.

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By March, the team had figured out that a memory chip that stored some of the flight data system’s software code had failed, turning the craft’s outgoing communications into gibberish.

A long-distance repair wasn’t possible. There wasn’t enough space anywhere in the system to shift the code in its entirety. So after manually reviewing the code line by line, engineers broke it up and tucked the pieces into the available slots of memory.

They sent a command to Voyager on Thursday. In the early morning hours Saturday, the team gathered around a conference table at JPL: laptops open, coffee and boxes of doughnuts in reach.

At 6:41 a.m., data from the craft showed up on their screens. The fix had worked .

“We went from very quiet and just waiting patiently to cheers and high-fives and big smiles and sighs of relief,” Spilker said. “I’m very happy to once again have a meaningful conversation with Voyager 1.”

Voyager 1 is one of two identical space probes. Voyager 2, launched two weeks before Voyager 1, is now about 13 billion miles from Earth, the two crafts’ trajectories having diverged somewhere around Saturn. (Voyager 2 continued its weekly communications uninterrupted during Voyager 1’s outage.)

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They are the farthest-flung human-made objects in the universe, having traveled farther from their home planet than anything else this species has built. The task of keeping communications going grows harder with each passing day. Every 24 hours, Voyager 1 travels 912,000 miles farther away from us. As that distance grows, the signal becomes slower and weaker.

When the probe visited Jupiter in 1979, it was sending back data at a rate of 115.2 kilobits per second, Spilker said. Today, 45 years and more than 14 billion miles later, data come back at a rate of 40 bits per second.

The team is cautiously optimistic that the probes will stay in contact for three more years, long enough to celebrate the mission’s 50th anniversary in 2027, Spilker said. They could conceivably last until the 2030s.

The conversation can’t last forever. Microscopic bits of silica keep clogging up the thrusters that keep the probes’ antennas pointed toward Earth, which could end communications. The power is running low. Eventually, the day will come when both Voyagers stop transmitting data to Earth, and the first part of their mission ends.

But on the day each craft goes quiet, they begin a new era, one that could potentially last far longer. Each probe is equipped with a metallic album cover containing a Golden Record , a gold-plated copper disk inscribed with sounds and images meant to describe the species that built the Voyagers and the planet they came from.

Erosion in space is negligible; the images could be readable for another billion years or more. Should any other intelligent life form encounter one of the Voyager probes and have a means of retrieving the data from the record, they will at the very least have a chance to figure out who sent them — even if our species is by that time long gone.

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Corinne Purtill is a science and medicine reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her writing on science and human behavior has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Time Magazine, the BBC, Quartz and elsewhere. Before joining The Times, she worked as the senior London correspondent for GlobalPost (now PRI) and as a reporter and assignment editor at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. She is a native of Southern California and a graduate of Stanford University.

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Voyager 1: NASA's longest-running spacecraft back in touch with Earth after five months of silence

The Voyager probes are in interstellar space but Voyager 1 stopped sending back usable information in November. After months of work, NASA scientists have now heard back from the spacecraft.

By Mickey Carroll, science and technology reporter

Tuesday 23 April 2024 11:45, UK

NASA's longest-running spacecraft Voyager 1 is sending information back to Earth again for the first time since November.

Scientists have managed to fix a problem on the probe, which was launched 46 years ago, after five months of silence.

On 14 November last year, Voyager 1 stopped sending usable data back to Earth, even though scientists could tell it was still receiving their commands and working well otherwise.

Hi, it's me. - V1 https://t.co/jgGFBfxIOe — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) April 22, 2024

It was first launched alongside its twin, Voyager 2. The pair are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space , which is the space between stars.

The Voyager probes send back never-seen-before information about our galaxy. Since they blasted off in 1977, they have revealed details in Saturn's rings, provided the first in-depth images of the rings of Uranus and Neptune and discovered the rings of Jupiter.

Although their cameras are switched off to conserve power and memory, they are still sending back information that would be impossible to get anywhere else.

With all this data stuck onboard and the spacecraft more than 15 billion miles from Earth, NASA scientists needed to fix the problem remotely.

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The team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California confirmed in March that the issue was with one of Voyager 1's three onboard computers. That computer, called the flight data subsystem, is responsible for packaging the data up before it is sent back to Earth.

Engineers have confirmed that corrupted memory aboard my twin #Voyager1 has been causing it to send unreadable data to Earth. It may take months, but our team is optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally again: https://t.co/qe5iQUu4Oj https://t.co/AGFBZFz53v — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) April 4, 2024

Within the computer, a single chip containing some of the computer's software code had stopped working. Without that code, the data was unusable.

The engineers couldn't pop over and fix it. Instead, on 18 April, they remotely split the code across different parts of the computer.

Then they had to wait to see if their fix had worked.

It takes around 22-and-a-half hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 and another 22-and-a-half hours for a response to come back.

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On 20 April, the team got good news. For the first time in five months, they were in contact with Voyager 1 again and could check the health and status of the spacecraft.

Now, they'll adjust the rest of the computer so it can begin sending back more data.

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Voyager 2 is working normally and heading towards a star called Ross 248. It'll come within 1.7 light years of it in around 40,000 years.

Voyager 1 will almost reach a star in the Little Dipper constellation in 38,200 years from now.

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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.

News | August 17, 2022

Voyager, nasa's longest-lived mission, logs 45 years in space.

Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager probes are NASA’s longest-operating mission and the only spacecraft ever to explore interstellar space.

NASA’s twin Voyager probes have become, in some ways, time capsules of their era: They each carry an eight-track tape player for recording data, they have about 3 million times less memory than modern cellphones, and they transmit data about 38,000 times slower than a 5G internet connection.

Yet the Voyagers remain on the cutting edge of space exploration. Managed and operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, they are the only probes to ever explore interstellar space – the galactic ocean that our Sun and its planets travel through.

The Sun and the planets reside in the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun’s magnetic field and the outward flow of solar wind (charged particles from the Sun). Researchers – some of them younger than the two distant spacecraft – are combining Voyager’s observations with data from newer missions to get a more complete picture of our Sun and how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space.

“The heliophysics mission fleet provides invaluable insights into our Sun, from understanding the corona or the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, to examining the Sun’s impacts throughout the solar system, including here on Earth, in our atmosphere, and on into interstellar space,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Over the last 45 years, the Voyager missions have been integral in providing this knowledge and have helped change our understanding of the Sun and its influence in ways no other spacecraft can.”

The Voyagers are also ambassadors, each carrying a golden record containing images of life on Earth, diagrams of basic scientific principles, and audio that includes sounds from nature, greetings in multiple languages, and music. The gold-coated records serve as a cosmic “message in a bottle” for anyone who might encounter the space probes. At the rate gold decays in space and is eroded by cosmic radiation, the records will last more than a billion years.

Beyond Expectations

Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, quickly followed by Voyager 1 on Sept. 5. Both probes traveled to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 1 moving faster and reaching them first. Together, the probes unveiled much about the solar system’s two largest planets and their moons. Voyager 2 also became the first and only spacecraft to fly close to Uranus (in 1986) and Neptune (in 1989), offering humanity remarkable views of – and insights into – these distant worlds.

While Voyager 2 was conducting these flybys, Voyager 1 headed toward the boundary of the heliosphere. Upon exiting it in 2012 , Voyager 1 discovered that the heliosphere blocks 70% of cosmic rays, or energetic particles created by exploding stars. Voyager 2, after completing its planetary explorations, continued to the heliosphere boundary, exiting in 2018 . The twin spacecraft’s combined data from this region has challenged previous theories about the exact shape of the heliosphere.

“Today, as both Voyagers explore interstellar space, they are providing humanity with observations of uncharted territory,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager’s deputy project scientist at JPL. “This is the first time we’ve been able to directly study how a star, our Sun, interacts with the particles and magnetic fields outside our heliosphere, helping scientists understand the local neighborhood between the stars, upending some of the theories about this region, and providing key information for future missions.”

The Long Journey

Over the years, the Voyager team has grown accustomed to surmounting challenges that come with operating such mature spacecraft, sometimes calling upon retired colleagues for their expertise or digging through documents written decades ago.

Each Voyager is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator containing plutonium, which gives off heat that is converted to electricity. As the plutonium decays, the heat output decreases and the Voyagers lose electricity. To compensate , the team turned off all nonessential systems and some once considered essential, including heaters that protect the still-operating instruments from the frigid temperatures of space. All five of the instruments that have had their heaters turned off since 2019 are still working, despite being well below the lowest temperatures they were ever tested at.

Recently, Voyager 1 began experiencing an issue that caused status information about one of its onboard systems to become garbled. Despite this, the system and spacecraft otherwise continue to operate normally, suggesting the problem is with the production of the status data, not the system itself. The probe is still sending back science observations while the engineering team tries to fix the problem or find a way to work around it.

“The Voyagers have continued to make amazing discoveries, inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at JPL. “We don’t know how long the mission will continue, but we can be sure that the spacecraft will provide even more scientific surprises as they travel farther away from the Earth.”

More About the Mission

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built and operates the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

https://rps.nasa.gov/missions/12/voyager-1-2/

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A Look At NASA's Groundbreaking Voyager 1 Mission - And Where The Probe Is Heading Next

A gencies such as NASA are responsible for giving us a more detailed picture of space, literally in the case of technology such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope (utilizing the tiniest SSDs ). The latter is currently orbiting the Sun one million miles from us, a fascinating case study in the way that we can bring the distant reaches of space (realms it's entirely unsafe and impractical for humans to venture to directly) to us.

Drones and similar machines, capable of exploring the most inhospitable environments imaginable, have been key to this. Humans have never been more than 248,655 miles into space (a feat achieved by Apollo 13 in 1970 on its journey 'around' the moon), but Voyager 1 has boldly gone far, far, far beyond that, offering us a privileged and unprecedented insight into the universe beyond our own.

This piece will explore the beginnings of the Voyager 1 project, its objectives, and how the mission has unfolded to date. It's also important to look at the future of Voyager 1 and where it's scheduled to go next.

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The Concept Of Voyager 1

Jupiter and Saturn, the fifth- and sixth-furthest planets from the Sun, are approximately 601 million miles and one billion miles from the Earth respectively, at the furthest point in the planets' orbits. At their closest, these numbers shrink to a still-ludicrous 365 million miles and 746 million miles from our planet. With these being insurmountable journeys for even the most dedicated scientists, then, NASA needed an alternative way to get a closer look at these two gas giants.

Voyager 1, which set off on its journey on September 5, 1977, was designed with just that primary objective in mind: to reach both planets. A voyager in the truest sense of the word, it would gather remarkable information about those planets (and much more besides), and continue to provide such data for decades.

Voyager 1 was launched second, after Voyager 2, and is structurally just the same. The body of both probes consists largely of a 12-foot radio transmitter, and though they might look like rather humble craft, measuring at 28.2 feet long , these revolutionary probes have done some extraordinary work. Here's how it reached the first stop on its originally-planned adventure, Jupiter, and what it was able to learn on doing so.

When Voyager 1 Reached Jupiter

Monstrously large and difficult to miss as Jupiter may be, it wasn't until Voyager 1 that scientists were given an opportunity to study it up close and in painstaking detail, marking technological strides beyond Pioneer 10 and 11's own journeys earlier in the decade. The sheer length of the journey from Earth meant that it took the probe, capable of reaching speeds of more than 38,000 mph , almost a year and a half after launch to get within range to begin documenting the planet-gobbling gas giant .

From January to April 1979, Voyager's suite of scientific tools amassed readings about the planet as it passed by, and the snap-happy spacecraft collected around 19,000 images of it in the process. This bounty provided researchers a wealth of new information about Jupiter's composition, movement, atmosphere, and more.

A previously-unseen ring, rather less prominent than those sported by Saturn, was noted, theorized to have resulted from detritus left behind by numerous meteor impacts. The immense Great Red Spot, under the closest and most sophisticated watch in history, could be observed in terms of its impact on the wider planet's atmosphere, where winds swirl between and around each other.

A NASA statement, according to  Space , concluded that "possibly the most stunning of Voyager 1's discoveries was that Io has extremely active volcanoes," a unique feature in the solar system that results from the constant pressure of the moon's orbit of the planet. Even more revelations awaited when Voyager 1 reached Saturn.

Voyager 1's Study Of Saturn

It's no short hop from Jupiter to Saturn. In fact, it's a hop of around 403.3 million miles . This part of the journey, from the beginning of its Jupiter adventure to the beginning of its Saturn one, took around a year and a half to complete: It came into range of Saturn in August of 1980.

Voyager 1 noted some interesting similarities between the two gas giants. Truly monstrous storms raged here too, with the volatile and hydrogen-heavy conditions supporting winds of 1,100 mph . Voyager 1's in-depth case study provided a new understanding of the makeup of the planet, allowing science to look at even its most previously-well-documented elements anew.

Saturn, of course, is also ringed, a fact that makes its composition so iconic. What we did not know until the probe provided evidence, however, is that what we see isn't just one thick ring, but a complex structure of smaller rings (dubbed ringlets by NASA ), in layers.

Besides the two planets themselves, Voyager 1 had a particular interest in Saturn's moon Titan. From August to November 1980, this moon was also monitored by the probe, its atmosphere and relationship with Saturn investigated using ultraviolet and other technologies. With that, Voyager 1 had completed the journey it was primarily designed for, and an astonishing journey it was. The spacecraft was far from finished, however, as there were much further reaches yet to explore.

The Voyagers' Journey Beyond Saturn

Voyager 1 still had a surprising amount left in the metaphorical tank after its study of Saturn ended. The even-more-distant Uranus and Neptune didn't get the fly-by treatment as Jupiter and Saturn did, due to the logistics of the course it took to get the best look possible at Titan, but it passed by them nonetheless, and further still.

Its twin, Voyager 2, would investigate Uranus and Neptune more closely, discovering 11 new moons of the former up to February 1986 and observing Neptune three years later. Maintaining functionality of the spacecraft's instrumentation this far away required some complex work to keep NASA communication technology up to the task, but the work was a remarkable feat of human ingenuity. February 1998 marked an astonishing record for Voyager 1: still speeding away, it became the furthest-reaching man-made object ever.

It remained so, and continues to, with Guinness World Records officially declaring it to be the Most Remote Human-Made Object in October 2022. At the time, it was 23.631 billion km  from Earth. In fact, it's so distant that it comes somewhat closer and further from the planet as Earth orbits the Sun. Let's see where it's been on its great odyssey out of the Solar System, and where it may be heading.

The Most Incredible Leg Of Voyager 1's Journey, And Where It's Going Next

Having wrapped up its investigation of Saturn, it may have just become floating space junk, but that's far from the truth. In 2012, it exited the Heliosphere, essentially the area under the influence of the Sun's strongest magnetic field. As of that August, then, it has been passing through space outside of the Solar System itself, another first in human history.

As of February 6, 2024, NASA reports that Voyager 1, more than 46 years into its journey, is approximately 15,148,155,240 miles from us. Voyager 2, meanwhile, is a little behind at 12,677,967,494 miles. Both, however, are in the unprecedented territory of interstellar space. The Plasma Wave Subsystem, Low-Energy Charged Particles, Cosmic Ray Subsystem, and Magnetometer for both probes are still functional (as is Voyager 2's Plasma Science system), meaning that although their ultraviolet and radio functionalities are among the systems to have been deactivated to maintain fuel, they're still transmitting some information back to the planet.

NASA suggests that Voyager 1 will reach the beginnings of the Oort Cloud, an icy Solar System 'shell' half the distance to Alpha Centauri, in approximately 300 years. From there, it's on course towards a constellation called Ophiuchus. I How much longer its radioisotope thermoelectric generators will last remains a mystery, but Voyager 1 and 2 have had quite the extraordinary and pioneering journey to date.

Read the original article on SlashGear .

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The Voyager missions

Highlights Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and made a grand tour of the solar system's outer planets. They are the only functioning spacecraft in interstellar space, and they are still sending back measurements of the interstellar medium. Each spacecraft carries a copy of the golden record, a missive from Earth to any alien lifeforms that may find the probes in the future.

What are the Voyager missions?

The Voyager program consists of two spacecraft: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Voyager 2 was actually launched first, in August 1977, but Voyager 1 was sent on a faster trajectory when it launched about two weeks later. They are the only two functioning spacecraft currently in interstellar space, beyond the environment controlled by the sun.

Voyager 2’s path took it past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1985, and Neptune in 1989. It is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus or Neptune, and has provided much of the information that we use to characterize them now.

Because of its higher speed and more direct trajectory, Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 just a few months after they launched. It visited Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980. It overtook Pioneer 10 — the only other spacecraft in interstellar space thus far — in 1998 and is now the most distant artificial object from Earth.

How the Voyagers work

The two spacecraft are identical, each with a radio dish 3.7 meters (12 feet) across to transmit data back to Earth and a set of 16 thrusters to control their orientations and point their dishes toward Earth. The thrusters run on hydrazine fuel, but the electronic components of each spacecraft are powered by thermoelectric generators that run on plutonium. Each carries 11 scientific instruments, about half of which were designed just for observing planets and have now been shut off. The instruments that are now off include several cameras and spectrometers to examine the planets, as well as two radio-based experiments. Voyager 2 now has five functioning instruments: a magnetometer, a spectrometer designed to investigate plasmas, an instrument to measure low-energy charged particles and one for cosmic rays, and one that measures plasma waves. Voyager 1 only has four of those, as its plasma spectrometer is broken.

Jupiter findings

Over the course of their grand tours of the solar system, the Voyagers took tens of thousands of images and measurements that significantly changed our understanding of the outer planets.

At Jupiter, they gave us our first detailed ideas of how the planet’s atmosphere moves and evolves, showing that the Great Red Spot was a counter-clockwise rotating storm that interacted with other, smaller storms. They were also the first missions to spot a faint, dusty ring around Jupiter. Finally, they observed some of Jupiter’s moons, discovering Io’s volcanism, finding the linear features on Europa that were among the first hints that it might have an ocean beneath its surface, and granting Ganymede the title of largest moon in the solar system, a superlative that was previously thought to belong to Saturn’s moon Titan.

Saturn findings

Next, each spacecraft flew past Saturn, where they measured the composition and structure of Saturn’s atmosphere , and Voyager 1 also peered into Titan’s thick haze. Its observations led to the idea that Titan might have liquid hydrocarbons on its surface, a hypothesis that has since been verified by other missions. When the two missions observed Saturn’s rings, they found the gaps and waves that are well-known today. Voyager 1 also spotted three previously-unknown moons orbiting Saturn: Atlas, Prometheus, and Pandora.

Uranus and Neptune findings

After this, Voyager 1 headed out of the solar system, while Voyager 2 headed toward Uranus . There, it found 11 previously-unknown moons and two previously-unknown rings. Many of the phenomena it observed on Uranus remained unexplained, such as its unusual magnetic field and an unexpected lack of major temperature changes at different latitudes.

Voyager 2’s final stop, 12 years after it left Earth, was Neptune. When it arrived , it continued its streak of finding new moons with another haul of 6 small satellites, as well as finding rings around Neptune. As it did at Uranus, it observed the planet’s composition and magnetic field. It also found volcanic vents on Neptune’s huge moon Triton before it joined Voyager 1 on the way to interstellar space.

Interstellar space

Interstellar space begins at the heliopause, where the solar wind – a flow of charged particles released by the sun – is too weak to continue pushing against the interstellar medium, and the pressure from the two balances out. Voyager 1 officially entered interstellar space in August 2012, and Voyager 2 joined it  in November 2018.

These exits were instrumental in enabling astronomers to determine where exactly the edge of interstellar space is, something that’s difficult to measure from within the solar system. They showed that interstellar space begins just over 18 billion kilometers (about 11 billion miles) from the sun. The spacecraft continue to send back data on the structure of the interstellar medium.

After its planetary encounters, Voyager 1 took the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” image , showing Earth from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) away. As of 2021 , Voyager 1 is about 155 astronomical units (14.4 billion miles) from Earth, and Voyager 2 is nearly 129 astronomical units (12 billion miles) away.

The golden records

Each Voyager spacecraft has a golden phonograph record affixed to its side, intended as time capsules from Earth to any extraterrestrial life that might find the probes sometime in the distant future. They are inscribed with a message from Jimmy Carter, the U.S. President at the time of launch, which reads: “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

The covers of the records have several images inscribed, including visual instructions on how to play them, a map of our solar system’s location with respect to a set of 14 pulsars, and a drawing of a hydrogen atom. They are plated with uranium – its rate of decay will allow any future discoverers of either of the records to calculate when they were created.

The records’ contents were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan. Each contains 115 images, including scientific diagrams of the solar system and its planets, the flora and fauna of Earth, and examples of human culture. There are natural sounds, including breaking surf and birdsong, spoken greetings in 55 languages, an hour of brainwave recordings, and an eclectic selection of music ranging from Beethoven to Chuck Berry to a variety of folk music.

Learn more Voyager Mission Status Bulletin Archives Experience A Message From Earth - Inspired by the Voyager Golden Record Neptune, planet of wind and ice

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A Reverie for the Voyager Probes, Humanity’s Calling Cards

Voyager’s 40th anniversary, long after they have stopped communicating with earth, the twin voyager spacecraft will forever drift among the stars..

Forty years ago, in August and September of 1977, a band of humans launched a pair of robots to explore the solar system and probe the infinite darkness beyond. “3, 2, 1. We have ignition and we have liftoff!” Taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment, the twin Voyager spacecraft raced outward toward Jupiter, then used the giant planet’s gravity to slingshot on to Saturn. At Saturn they parted company. Voyager 1 turned upward, leaving the plane of the planets and heading toward interstellar space. But Voyager 2 kept trekking, spiraling outward on a grand tour of the outer planets, toward distant Uranus and Neptune. At each planetfall, fuzzy dots bloomed into worlds. Every image sent back to Earth was another lesson on nature’s ability to surprise. Voyager saw swirls within swirls in Jupiter’s banded jet streams. Volcanoes spouting sulphur on Jupiter’s moon Io, a tormented world twisted and pulled by gravity. And eggshell-smooth Europa, an icy shell around a hidden ocean. Two years after Jupiter, the Voyagers approached Saturn, jewel of the solar system. Its broad rings dissolved into thousands of grooves, like a phonograph record. Braided, kinked and patrolled by tiny moonlets. Voyager probed the methane skies of Titan. It slid past two-faced Iapetus, with light and dark sides. Giovanni Cassini’s disappearing moon. And Enceladus. Trapped under its crust of ice is another dark ocean, and perhaps living creatures. After Saturn, Voyager 1 turned away from the planets but Voyager 2 sailed on. Voyager found ghostly Uranus tipped on its side, its south pole facing the sun. A blue-green bulls eye with faint rings. Voyager slipped passed methane-blue Neptune, a pacific-looking world bruised with dark, violent hurricanes. Antennas on Earth strained to hear the trickle of data from almost 3 billion miles out. Voyager 2’s last port of call was Triton, Neptune’s biggest moon. A mottled ball of exotic ices, plumed with dark geysers of nitrogen. One final world added to Voyager’s tally. But the Voyager mission was not only to observe. Each spacecraft carried a message. A gold record, with a needle and instructions on how to play it. A time capsule from the 1970s, grooved with the sights and sounds of Earth. “I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system, into the universe, seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate.” Of all the voices ever recorded, of all the photographs ever taken, these few will survive the end of our planet. Scratches on gold, adrift in the void. A time capsule from the 1970s, grooved with the sights and sounds of Earth. Of all the voices ever recorded, of all the photographs ever taken, these few will survive the end of our planet. Scratches on gold, adrift in the void. As Voyager 1 climbed away from the planets, it turned its cameras backward. To snap a family portrait of the worlds it was leaving behind forever. The Earth appears as a bright pixel in a wash of scattered sunlight. A “Pale Blue Dot” in the words of astronomer and cosmic sage, Carl Sagan: “Consider again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. ... The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.” No other spacecraft have gone so far, or explored so many new worlds. In the fullness of galactic time the Voyagers might yet be found, but by then the human race could be long extinct. Long after they have ceased speaking to us, the twins will forever drift among the stars. Mute, but carrying sounds and greetings from home. “Hello from the children of Planet Earth” The last lonely evidence that we too once lived in this starry realm, on an island of ice and rock. As Carl Sagan put it: “A dust mote in a sunbeam.”

By Dennis Overbye

• Aug. 21, 2017

In the shadow, one might say, of the Great American Eclipse, a major anniversary in the history of space exploration — and indeed cosmic consciousness — is being celebrated.

It was 40 years ago, on Aug. 20 and Sept. 5, 1977, that a pair of robots named Voyager were dispatched to explore the outer solar system and the vast darkness beyond.

What resulted was nothing less than a reimagining of what a world might be and what strange cribs of geology and chemistry might give rise to life in some form or other.

It was a real-life Star Trek adventure, but the crew stayed home, communicating with their two spacecraft through a billion-mile bucket brigade of data bits.

New computer programs went one way, and data — including scratchy photos of new landscapes and the whispering moans of interplanetary plasma fields — came back the other way. All of it was being carried out by a robot brain with the memory capacity of an old-fashioned digital watch.

The spacecraft had been designed to make what scientists called the Grand Tour, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year planetary alignment. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were to use the gravity of the outer planets to slingshot from Jupiter to Saturn, and to Uranus and Neptune , and then beyond the edge of the sun’s domain into interstellar space.

In the end, only half the tour — to Jupiter and Saturn — was actually approved. But the Voyager crew packed for a much longer journey. When they lifted off 40 years ago, the two spacecraft carried golden records inscribed with pictures and sounds from Earth, greetings from President Jimmy Carter and instructions on how to play it all.

The Voyagers would observe the universe, and give something back to whoever might one day find them.

The robot emissaries cruised the solar system through presidential administrations, wars and scandals, and the Challenger disaster, which happened as Voyager 2 was pulling away from Uranus.

At every planetfall, the crew members, a little older and a little grayer each time, reconvened at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for a weeklong marathon of discovery, a circus of science on the fly.

With imagery returned by probes, what had been fuzzy dots in the world’s biggest telescopes bloomed into worlds.

Back on Earth, some theoreticians claimed to be homing in on a putative theory of everything, an Einsteinian dream of an equation simple enough to be inscribed on a T-shirt.

But in space, scientists were finding that such theories were no help against nature’s endless capacity to invent and surprise. Each new world revealed by the Voyagers was a head-scratcher.

Once upon a time, it was presumed that the moons of the outer planets, so far from the sun and so close to the origins of the solar system, would be boring ice balls, geologically and in every other way dead.

But then Voyager 2 spotted volcanoes spraying fountains of sulfur from the surface of Jupiter’s innermost moon, Io. On close inspection, Saturn’s rings — the jewels of the solar system — dissolved into 10,000 grooves, like a vinyl record’s, braided, kinked and patrolled by tiny moonlets.

Voyager 1 plumbed a fat, smoggy atmosphere of Titan, where nitrogen and methane rains fall on a frozen slush pile of hydrocarbons and oily lakes, and then headed off toward interstellar space.

Voyager 2 cruised on to Uranus, mysteriously tipped on its axis and surrounded by rings that make it look like a bull’s eye.

The probe passed the restful methane blue of Neptune, besmirched by a dark spot, and its moon Triton, an ice rock flowing like soft ice cream with geysering nitrogen.

I’ve never had more fun as a science writer than during those weeklong encounters in Pasadena, when my colleagues and I — a little older and grayer ourselves, humbler but no wiser about the tricks that nature might be up to out there in the realm of dark and ice — gathered to watch the scientists watch their new worlds.

The television screens in the press room showed the latest images as they came in from the Voyager spacecraft. We had the same view as the scientists.

If on some distant world there had been a sign saying “Drink Coke,” or a pyramid, what we liked to call “the press room imaging team” would have had a chance to see it first.

Casting aside years of learned reserve and an addiction to speaking and writing in the passive voice, Voyager scientists had to parade to daily news briefings and venture explanations that they knew they would have to take back a few days later about things they (and we) had seen for the first time only a few hours before.

Part of the joy of “The Farthest: Voyager in Space,” a documentary to air on PBS on Wednesday, is reliving those moments of bafflement and intellectual ambition.

It was at the Voyager encounters that I first got to know my colleagues in the newspaper business, and learned by going out to dinner with them that they could drink me under the table before the appetizers arrived.

Other nights were spent in the bluesy, smoky company of science writers and planetary astronomers listening to the space ballads of Jonathan Eberhart, the late correspondent for Science News and a well-known folk singer. A rock band named for a feature of Titan, The Titan Equatorial Band, played at parties and gatherings.

The music stopped the morning after Voyager 2 passed by Uranus, on Jan. 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up with seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, the teacher in space.

That morning the televisions in a hushed newsroom at J.P.L. had Uranus on one screen and the Y-shaped cloud of the explosion on the other. By noon, my newspaper friends had packed their bags and headed for Houston or Cape Canaveral.

Voyager 2 went on. By the time it reached Neptune — the gatekeeper of our planetary realm, now that Pluto doesn’t count — the engineers at J.P.L. had enlisted antennas around the Earth to listen in unison, catching the trickle of data bits flowing from almost three billion miles away.

Chuck Berry, whose music was included on the spacecraft records, came to the lab to play for a Voyager farewell party.

There would be one last act. In 1990, as it ascended the void, Voyager 1’s crew commanded it to turn its cameras backward and snap a family portrait of the worlds it was leaving forever behind.

The Earth appears on this picture as the famous “pale blue dot” in a wash of scattered sunlight, a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” as the astronomer and cosmic sage Carl Sagan later described it.

Voyagers’ cameras are now turned off, but the probes continue to report back on the conditions in deepest space.

In October 2012, magnetic field and cosmic ray measurements indicated that Voyager 1 had reached the edge of the magnetic bubble that the sun extends like an umbrella over the planets, blocking outside radiation.

Voyager 1 was in interstellar space, the first human artifact to escape the solar system. It and its twin will go on circling the galaxy, long after it has ceased speaking to us.

In the fullness of galactic time, the Voyagers may be found, but by then the human race may be long extinct. The Voyager record might be the only physical remnant, the last lonely evidence that we, too, once lived in this city of stars, among these islands of ice and rock.

Back then, we were looking forward to an exploration of space that would go on forever. It was magic, and we were all on the spaceship.

An article on Tuesday about the accomplishments of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space missions misstated the date on which the PBS documentary “The Farthest” was broadcast. It was shown Wednesday night; it had not already aired at the time the article was published.

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Whatever happened to the Voyager spacecraft?

As the MIR moves outward from the Sun, it eventually will cross the termination shock, where the solar wind collides with the interstellar wind and slows. From there, the gas will continue until it reaches the heliopause, the edge of the heliosphere. There, it will mix with cooler gas in the interstellar medium.

If the MIR has retained sufficient energy, this event will create low-frequency radio waves that both Voyagers can detect. Scientists can calculate the distance to the heliopause — and, by inference, the termination shock — by comparing the arrival time of the MIR’s radio signal with the time the shock passed the spacecraft. One of the science goals of what we now call the Voyager Interstellar Mission is to encounter the termination shock so we can observe interactions between the solar wind and its interstellar counterpart.

In fact, Voyager 1 may be close already. Recent observations indicate Voyager 1 is in a region unlike any it has encountered in all its years of exploration. Some scientists believe Voyager 1 has begun its passage through the termination shock, but the phenomena we observe are somewhat different than what was expected. So the debate continues while scientists try to understand what the spacecraft’s instruments are telling us. If Voyager 1 has encountered the termination shock, it would be the first spacecraft to have entered the solar system’s final frontier, a vast expanse where wind from the Sun blows hot against the thin, cold gas between the stars. — ED B. MASSEY, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, GREENBELT, MARYLAND

A metal chunk that burst through a Florida home came from the ISS

The search is on for extraterrestrial life on worlds like Enceladus

An updated list of space missions: Current and upcoming voyages

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NASA bids farewell to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter with new photos

Nasa’s snake-like eels robot impresses in early testssssssss.

NASA is taking astronaut applications. Here’s how to apply

Mariner 10, a mission of firsts, used gravity to bend its way from Venus to Mercury

Dwarf galaxies turned on the lights near the dawn of time, JWST reveals

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Where is Voyager 1 heading?

NASA's Voyager 1 probe is heading toward an encounter with a distant star, about 40,000 years from now.

• By Mike Wall Space.com

September 13, 2013

Now that NASA 's Voyager 1 probe has left the solar system, its next big spaceflight milestone comes with the flyby of another star — in 40,000 years.

Voyager 1 entered interstellar space  in August 2012, nearly 35 years after blasting off, scientists announced Thursday (Sept. 12). As it leaves our solar system behind, the robotic spacecraft is streaking toward an encounter with a star called AC +79 3888, which lies 17.6 light-years from Earth.

"Voyager's on its way to a close approach with it in about 40,000 years," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , Calif., told reporters Thursday. "It's going to come within 1.7 light-years of this star — and it'll swing by it, and it will continue to orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy." [ Voyager 1 in Interstellar Space: Complete Coverage ]

The probe won't beam home any data from AC +79 3888's neighborhood, of course. Voyager 1's declining power supply will force the mission team to turn off its first instrument in 2020, and all of the science gear will stop working by 2025, Dodd said.

That time window still gives  Voyager 1  a dozen years or so to study interstellar space up close, and researchers can't wait to see what the probe observes in this unexplored realm.

For example, the spacecraft's data should shed light on how interstellar plasma flows around the heliosphere — the huge bubble of charged particles and magnetic fields that the sun puffs out around itself — said Voyager chief scientist Ed Stone, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"So now, we will be able to understand and measure and observe that interaction, which is a very important part of how the sun interacts with what's around it," Stone told SPACE.com .

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2 , launched a few weeks apart in 1977 to study Jupiter, Saturn , Uranus and Neptune . The duo completed this unprecedented "grand tour" in 1989, and then embarked on a new mission to investigate the outer reaches of the solar system and  interstellar space .

Voyager 1, which is zipping along at 38,000 mph (61,000 km/h), is currently 11.7 billion miles (18.8 billion kilometers) from Earth. Voyager 2 took a different route through the solar system and is now 9.5 billion miles (15.3 billion km) from home.

Voyager 2 may join its twin in interstellar space three or four years from now, Stone said, stressing that it's tough to predict a departure date in advance.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter  @michaeldwall  and  Google+ . Follow us  @Spacedotcom ,  Facebook  or  Google+ . Originally published on  SPACE.com.

• Voyager 1 Spacecraft's Road to Interstellar Space: A Photo Timeline
• Voyager 1 Goes Interstellar: Solar System Boundary Passed | Video
• 5 Facts About NASA's Far-Flung Voyager Spacecraft

Copyright 2013  SPACE.com , a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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NASA solves Voyager 1 data glitch mystery, but finds another

The good news: Voyager 1's telemetry is clear again. The weird: Why did it use a dead computer?

NASA's Voyager 1 probe is finally making sense again in interstellar space.

After months of sending junk data about its health to flight controllers on Earth, the 45-year-old Voyager 1 is once again beaming back clear telemetry data on its status beyond our solar system. NASA knew the problem was somewhere in the spacecraft's attitude articulation and control system, or AACS, which keeps Voyager 1's antenna pointed at Earth . But the solution was surprising. 

"The AACS had started sending the telemetry data through an onboard computer known to have stopped working years ago, and the computer corrupted the information ," NASA officials wrote in an update Tuesday (Aug. 30). The rest of the spacecraft was apparently fine, collecting data as it normal.

Related: Celebrate 45 years of Voyager with these amazing images (gallery)

Once engineers began to suspect Voyager 1 was using a dead computer, they simply sent a command to the probe so its AACS system would use the right computer to phone home. It was a low-risk fix, but time consuming. It takes a radio signal nearly 22 hours to reach Voyager 1, which was 14.6 billion miles (23.5 billion kilometers) from Earth and growing farther by the second as of Aug. 30.

With the Voyager 1 data glitch solved, NASA is now pondering a new mystery: what caused it in the first place. 

“We're happy to have the telemetry back," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd said in a statement . "We'll do a full memory readout of the AACS and look at everything it's been doing. That will help us try to diagnose the problem that caused the telemetry issue in the first place."

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Related: Voyager 1 marks 10 years in interstellar space

— What's next for NASA's Voyager 2 in interstellar space?

— Scientists' predictions for the long-term future of the Voyager Golden Records will blow your mind

— NASA's twin Voyager probes are nearly 45 — and facing some hard decisions  

Engineers suspect Voyager 1 began routing its health and status telemetry through the dead computer after receiving a bad command from yet another onboard computer. That would suggest some other problem lurking inside Voyager 1's computer brains, but mission managers don't think it's a threat to the iconic spacecraft's long-term health.

Still, they'd like to know exactly what's going inside Voyager 1. 

"So we're cautiously optimistic, but we still have more investigating to do," Dodd said in the statement. 

NASA launched the Voyager 1 spacecraft, and its twin Voyager 2 , in 1977 on a mission to explore the outer planets of the solar system. Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn during its primary mission and kept going, ultimately entering interstellar space in 2012 , with Voyager 2 reaching that milestone in 2018. 

You can track the status of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on this NASA website .

Email Tariq Malik at  [email protected]  or follow him  @tariqjmalik . Follow us  @Spacedotcom ,  Facebook  and  Instagram .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network . To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik .

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A New Study Suggests Aliens Aren’t Little Green Men. They’re Purple People Eaters.

We might have had it wrong this whole time.

• The search for life beyond Earth requires expanding the very definition of what life can be.
• Some exoplanets, especially those orbiting cooler red dwarfs, might host purple plant life rather than the green-hue vegetation found on Earth.
• A new study from Cornell University discovered that a particular purple “light fingerprint” could be indicative of extraterrestrial life.

Scientists from Cornell University analyzed how alien plants that rely on infrared radiation for photosynthesis might transform the hues of alien worlds. These kinds of bacteria, which include phototrophic anoxygenic bacteria and photoheterotrophic bacteria, could emit a distinctive “light fingerprint” that could be detectable by upcoming observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope. The results of the study were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“Purple bacteria can thrive under a wide range of conditions, making it one of the primary contenders for life that could dominate a variety of worlds,” Cornell University Ph.D. student Lígia Fonseca Coelho said in a press statement . “They already thrive here in certain niches… just imagine if they were not competing with green plants, algae and bacteria: A red sun could give them the most favorable conditions for photosynthesis.”

To understand the color and chemical signature such a world would emit, Coelho and her colleagues gathered 20 specimens of purple sulfur and purple non-sulfur bacteria from various places around the world—including hydrothermal vents and even ponds near Cornell’s campus. These bacteria rely on low-energy red and infrared right for a photosynthesis-like process, and while purple bacteria might be a biological niche today, some scientists theorize that an ancient Earth was likely much more purple than it is today.

A 2022 study from the University of Maryland explored why plants reflect the color green when technically the Sun emits the most light in the blue-green spectrum . The scientists argued that a light-sensitive molecule called retinal (which first appeared on Earth before chlorophyll) absorbed green light and reflect red and violet—which, to the human eye , would’ve looked purple.

When the molecule chlorophyll evolved on Earth—thanks in no small part to a rise in oxygen levels—the Sun’s green light was already being absorbed by retinal-leveraging plants. So, instead, the molecule absorbed all other available light. Even though the Sun emits less light in that spectrum, chlorophyll were part of a more advanced, efficient system at producing photosynthesis, and Earth’s green hue began to take shape.

But on oxygen-poor exoplanets orbiting cool, red dwarf stars, things might be drastically different. Coelho developed various models of Earth-like planets across a range of wet and dry environments, and many of the simulated “light fingerprints” came back purple.

“If purple bacteria are thriving on the surface of a frozen Earth, an ocean world, a snowball Earth or a modern Earth orbiting a cooler star ,” Coelho said in a press statement. “We now have the tools to search for them.”

So, when aliens finally do reach Earth, don’t count on “little green men.” As for flying purple people-eaters... well, now we’re on to something.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough. 

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• 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

The Voyager Planetary Mission

The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched by NASA in separate months in the summer of 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. As originally designed, the Voyagers were to conduct closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings, and the larger moons of the two planets.

To accomplish their two-planet mission, the spacecraft were built to last five years. But as the mission went on, and with the successful achievement of all its objectives, the additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible -- and irresistible to mission scientists and engineers at the Voyagers' home at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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 the Earth. Their two-planet mission became four. Their five-year lifetimes stretched to 12 and more.

Eventually, between them, Voyager 1 and 2 would explore all the giant outer planets of our solar system, 48 of their moons, and the unique systems of rings and magnetic fields those planets possess.

Had the Voyager mission ended after the Jupiter and Saturn flybys alone, it still would have provided the material to rewrite astronomy textbooks. But having doubled their already ambitious itineraries, the Voyagers returned to Earth information over the years that has revolutionized the science of planetary astronomy, helping to resolve key questions while raising intriguing new ones about the origin and evolution of the planets in our solar system.

History of the Voyager Mission

The Voyager mission was designed to take advantage of a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets in the late 1970s and the 1980s which allowed for a four-planet tour for a minimum of propellant and trip time. This layout of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which occurs about every 175 years, allows a spacecraft on a particular flight path to swing from one planet to the next without the need for large onboard propulsion systems. The flyby of each planet bends the spacecraft's flight path and increases its velocity enough to deliver it to the next destination. Using this "gravity assist" technique, first demonstrated with NASA's Mariner 10 Venus/Mercury mission in 1973-74, the flight time to Neptune was reduced from 30 years to 12.

While the four-planet mission was known to be possible, it was deemed to be too expensive to build a spacecraft that could go the distance, carry the instruments needed and last long enough to accomplish such a long mission. Thus, the Voyagers were funded to conduct intensive flyby studies of Jupiter and Saturn only. More than 10,000 trajectories were studied before choosing the two that would allow close flybys of Jupiter and its large moon Io, and Saturn and its large moon Titan; the chosen flight path for Voyager 2 also preserved the option to continue on to Uranus and Neptune.

From the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Voyager 2 was launched first, on August 20, 1977; Voyager 1 was launched on a faster, shorter trajectory on September 5, 1977. Both spacecraft were delivered to space aboard Titan-Centaur expendable rockets.

The prime Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn brought Voyager 1 to Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on November 12, 1980, followed by Voyager 2 to Jupiter on July 9, 1979, and Saturn on August 25, 1981.

Voyager 1's trajectory, designed to send the spacecraft closely past the large moon Titan and behind Saturn's rings, bent the spacecraft's path inexorably northward out of the ecliptic plane -- the plane in which most of the planets orbit the Sun. Voyager 2 was aimed to fly by Saturn at a point that would automatically send the spacecraft in the direction of Uranus.

After Voyager 2's successful Saturn encounter, it was shown that Voyager 2 would likely be able to fly on to Uranus with all instruments operating. NASA provided additional funding to continue operating the two spacecraft and authorized JPL to conduct a Uranus flyby. Subsequently, NASA also authorized the Neptune leg of the mission, which was renamed the Voyager Neptune Interstellar Mission.

Voyager 2 encountered Uranus on January 24, 1986, returning detailed photos and other data on the planet, its moons, magnetic field and dark rings. Voyager 1, meanwhile, continues to press outward, conducting studies of interplanetary space. Eventually, its instruments may be the first of any spacecraft to sense the heliopause -- the boundary between the end of the Sun's magnetic influence and the beginning of interstellar space. (Voyager 1 entered Interstellar Space on August 25, 2012.)

Following Voyager 2's closest approach to Neptune on August 25, 1989, the spacecraft flew southward, below the ecliptic plane and onto a course that will take it, too, to interstellar space. Reflecting the Voyagers' new transplanetary destinations, the project is now known as the Voyager Interstellar Mission.

Voyager 1 is now leaving the solar system, rising above the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 35 degrees at a rate of about 520 million kilometers (about 320 million miles) a year. Voyager 2 is also headed out of the solar system, diving below the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 48 degrees and a rate of about 470 million kilometers (about 290 million miles) a year.

Both spacecraft will continue to study ultraviolet sources among the stars, and the fields and particles instruments aboard the Voyagers will continue to search for the boundary between the Sun's influence and interstellar space. The Voyagers are expected to return valuable data for two or three more decades. Communications will be maintained until the Voyagers' nuclear power sources can no longer supply enough electrical energy to power critical subsystems.

The cost of the Voyager 1 and 2 missions -- including launch, mission operations from launch through the Neptune encounter and the spacecraft's nuclear batteries (provided by the Department of Energy) -- is $865 million. NASA budgeted an additional $30 million to fund the Voyager Interstellar Mission for two years following the Neptune encounter.

Voyagers 1 and 2 are identical spacecraft. Each is equipped with instruments to conduct 10 different experiments. The instruments include television cameras, infrared and ultraviolet sensors, magnetometers, plasma detectors, and cosmic-ray and charged-particle sensors. In addition, the spacecraft radio is used to conduct experiments.

The Voyagers travel too far from the Sun to use solar panels; instead, they were equipped with power sources called radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). These devices, used on other deep space missions, convert the heat produced from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity to power the spacecraft instruments, computers, radio and other systems.

The spacecraft are controlled and their data returned through the Deep Space Network (DSN), a global spacecraft tracking system operated by JPL for NASA. DSN antenna complexes are located in California's Mojave Desert; near Madrid, Spain; and in Tidbinbilla, near Canberra, Australia.

The Voyager project manager for the Interstellar Mission is George P. Textor of JPL. The Voyager project scientist is Dr. Edward C. Stone of the California Institute of Technology. The assistant project scientist for the Jupiter flyby was Dr. Arthur L. Lane, followed by Dr. Ellis D. Miner for the Saturn, Uranus and Neptune encounters. Both are with JPL.

JUPITER Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Voyager 2 followed with its closest approach occurring on July 9, 1979. The first spacecraft flew within 277,400 kilometers (172,368 miles) of the planet's cloud tops, and Voyager 2 came within 650,180 kilometers (404,003 miles).

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of methane, ammonia, water vapor, traces of other compounds and a core of melted rock and ice. Colorful latitudinal bands and atmospheric clouds and storms illustrate Jupiter's dynamic weather system. The giant planet is now known to possess 16 moons. The planet completes one orbit of the Sun each 11.8 years and its day is 9 hours, 55 minutes.

Although astronomers had studied Jupiter through telescopes on Earth for centuries, scientists were surprised by many of the Voyager findings.

The Great Red Spot was revealed as a complex storm moving in a counterclockwise direction. An array of other smaller storms and eddies were found throughout the banded clouds.

Discovery of active volcanism on the satellite Io was easily the greatest unexpected discovery at Jupiter. It was the first time active volcanoes had been seen on another body in the solar system. Together, the Voyagers observed the eruption of nine volcanoes on Io, and there is evidence that other eruptions occurred between the Voyager encounters.

Plumes from the volcanoes extend to more than 300 kilometers (190 miles) above the surface. The Voyagers observed material ejected at velocities up to a kilometer per second.

Io's volcanoes are apparently due to heating of the satellite by tidal pumping. Io is perturbed in its orbit by Europa and Ganymede, two other large satellites nearby, then pulled back again into its regular orbit by Jupiter. This tug-of-war results in tidal bulging as great as 100 meters (330 feet) on Io's surface, compared with typical tidal bulges on Earth of one meter (three feet).

It appears that volcanism on Io affects the entire jovian system, in that it is the primary source of matter that pervades Jupiter's magnetosphere -- the region of space surrounding the planet influenced by the jovian magnetic field. Sulfur, oxygen and sodium, apparently erupted by Io's many volcanoes and sputtered off the surface by impact of high-energy particles, were detected as far away as the outer edge of the magnetosphere millions of miles from the planet itself.

Europa displayed a large number of intersecting linear features in the low-resolution photos from Voyager 1. At first, scientists believed the features might be deep cracks, caused by crustal rifting or tectonic processes. The closer high-resolution photos from Voyager 2, however, left scientists puzzled: The features were so lacking in topographic relief that as one scientist described them, they "might have been painted on with a felt marker." There is a possibility that Europa may be internally active due to tidal heating at a level one-tenth or less than that of Io. Europa is thought to have a thin crust (less than 30 kilometers or 18 miles thick) of water ice, possibly floating on a 50-kilometer-deep (30-mile) ocean.

Ganymede turned out to be the largest moon in the solar system, with a diameter measuring 5,276 kilometers (3,280 miles). It showed two distinct types of terrain -- cratered and grooved -- suggesting to scientists that Ganymede's entire icy crust has been under tension from global tectonic processes.

Callisto has a very old, heavily cratered crust showing remnant rings of enormous impact craters. The largest craters have apparently been erased by the flow of the icy crust over geologic time. Almost no topographic relief is apparent in the ghost remnants of the immense impact basins, identifiable only by their light color and the surrounding subdued rings of concentric ridges.

A faint, dusty ring of material was found around Jupiter. Its outer edge is 129,000 kilometers (80,000 miles) from the center of the planet, and it extends inward about 30,000 kilometers (18,000 miles).

Two new, small satellites, Adrastea and Metis, were found orbiting just outside the ring. A third new satellite, Thebe, was discovered between the orbits of Amalthea and Io.

Jupiter's rings and moons exist within an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped in the planet's magnetic field. These particles and fields comprise the jovian magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, which extends three to seven million kilometers toward the Sun, and stretches in a windsock shape at least as far as Saturn's orbit -- a distance of 750 million kilometers (460 million miles).

As the magnetosphere rotates with Jupiter, it sweeps past Io and strips away about 1,000 kilograms (one ton) of material per second. The material forms a torus, a doughnut-shaped cloud of ions that glow in the ultraviolet. Some of the torus's heavy ions migrate outward, and their pressure inflates the Jovian magnetosphere, while the more energetic sulfur and oxygen ions fall along the magnetic field into the planet's atmosphere, resulting in auroras.

Io acts as an electrical generator as it moves through Jupiter's magnetic field, developing 400,000 volts across its diameter and generating an electric current of 3 million amperes that flows along the magnetic field to the planet's ionosphere.

SATURN The Voyager 1 and 2 Saturn flybys occurred nine months apart, with the closest approaches falling on November 12 and August 25, 1981. Voyager 1 flew within 64,200 kilometers (40,000 miles) of the cloud tops, while Voyager 2 came within 41,000 kilometers (26,000 miles).

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. It takes 29.5 Earth years to complete one orbit of the Sun, and its day was clocked at 10 hours, 39 minutes. Saturn is known to have at least 17 moons and a complex ring system. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly hydrogen and helium. Its hazy yellow hue was found to be marked by broad atmospheric banding similar to but much fainter than that found on Jupiter. Close scrutiny by Voyager's imaging systems revealed long-lived ovals and other atmospheric features generally smaller than those on Jupiter.

Perhaps the greatest surprises and the most puzzles were found by the Voyagers in Saturn's rings. It is thought that the rings formed from larger moons that were shattered by impacts of comets and meteoroids. The resulting dust and boulder- to house-size particles have accumulated in a broad plane around the planet varying in density.

The irregular shapes of Saturn's eight smallest moons indicates that they too are fragments of larger bodies. Unexpected structure such as kinks and spokes were found in addition to thin rings and broad, diffuse rings not observed from Earth. Much of the elaborate structure of some of the rings is due to the gravitational effects of nearby satellites. This phenomenon is most obviously demonstrated by the relationship between the F-ring and two small moons that "shepherd" the ring material. The variation in the separation of the moons from the ring may the ring's kinked appearance. Shepherding moons were also found by Voyager 2 at Uranus.

Radial, spoke-like features in the broad B-ring were found by the Voyagers. The features are believed to be composed of fine, dust-size particles. The spokes were observed to form and dissipate in time-lapse images taken by the Voyagers. While electrostatic charging may create spokes by levitating dust particles above the ring, the exact cause of the formation of the spokes is not well understood.

Winds blow at extremely high speeds on Saturn -- up to 1,800 kilometers per hour (1,100 miles per hour). Their primarily easterly direction indicates that the winds are not confined to the top cloud layer but must extend at least 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) downward into the atmosphere. The characteristic temperature of the atmosphere is 95 kelvins.

Saturn holds a wide assortment of satellites in its orbit, ranging from Phoebe, a small moon that travels in a retrograde orbit and is probably a captured asteroid, to Titan, the planet-sized moon with a thick nitrogen-methane atmosphere. Titan's surface temperature and pressure are 94 kelvins (-292 Fahrenheit) and 1.5 atmospheres. Photochemistry converts some atmospheric methane to other organic molecules, such as ethane, that is thought to accumulate in lakes or oceans. Other more complex hydrocarbons form the haze particles that eventually fall to the surface, coating it with a thick layer of organic matter. The chemistry in Titan's atmosphere may strongly resemble that which occurred on Earth before life evolved.

The most active surface of any moon seen in the Saturn system was that of Enceladus. The bright surface of this moon, marked by faults and valleys, showed evidence of tectonically induced change. Voyager 1 found the moon Mimas scarred with a crater so huge that the impact that caused it nearly broke the satellite apart.

Saturn's magnetic field is smaller than Jupiter's, extending only one or two million kilometers. The axis of the field is almost perfectly aligned with the rotation axis of the planet.

URANUS In its first solo planetary flyby, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986, coming within 81,500 kilometers (50,600 miles) of the planet's cloud tops.

Uranus is the third largest planet in the solar system. It orbits the Sun at a distance of about 2.8 billion kilometers (1.7 billion miles) and completes one orbit every 84 years. The length of a day on Uranus as measured by Voyager 2 is 17 hours, 14 minutes.

Uranus is distinguished by the fact that it is tipped on its side. Its unusual position is thought to be the result of a collision with a planet-sized body early in the solar system's history. Given its odd orientation, with its polar regions exposed to sunlight or darkness for long periods, scientists were not sure what to expect at Uranus.

Voyager 2 found that one of the most striking influences of this sideways position is its effect on the tail of the magnetic field, which is itself tilted 60 degrees from the planet's axis of rotation. The magnetotail was shown to be twisted by the planet's rotation into a long corkscrew shape behind the planet.

The presence of a magnetic field at Uranus was not known until Voyager's arrival. The intensity of the field is roughly comparable to that of Earth's, though it varies much more from point to point because of its large offset from the center of Uranus. The peculiar orientation of the magnetic field suggests that the field is generated at an intermediate depth in the interior where the pressure is high enough for water to become electrically conducting.

Radiation belts at Uranus were found to be of an intensity similar to those at Saturn. The intensity of radiation within the belts is such that irradiation would quickly darken (within 100,000 years) any methane trapped in the icy surfaces of the inner moons and ring particles. This may have contributed to the darkened surfaces of the moons and ring particles, which are almost uniformly gray in color.

A high layer of haze was detected around the sunlit pole, which also was found to radiate large amounts of ultraviolet light, a phenomenon dubbed "dayglow." The average temperature is about 60 kelvins (-350 degrees Fahrenheit). Surprisingly, the illuminated and dark poles, and most of the planet, show nearly the same temperature at the cloud tops.

Voyager found 10 new moons, bringing the total number to 15. Most of the new moons are small, with the largest measuring about 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) in diameter.

The moon Miranda, innermost of the five large moons, was revealed to be one of the strangest bodies yet seen in the solar system. Detailed images from Voyager's flyby of the moon showed huge fault canyons as deep as 20 kilometers (12 miles), terraced layers, and a mixture of old and young surfaces. One theory holds that Miranda may be a reaggregration of material from an earlier time when the moon was fractured by an violent impact.

The five large moons appear to be ice-rock conglomerates like the satellites of Saturn. Titania is marked by huge fault systems and canyons indicating some degree of geologic, probably tectonic, activity in its history. Ariel has the brightest and possibly youngest surface of all the Uranian moons and also appears to have undergone geologic activity that led to many fault valleys and what seem to be extensive flows of icy material. Little geologic activity has occurred on Umbriel or Oberon, judging by their old and dark surfaces.

All nine previously known rings were studied by the spacecraft and showed the Uranian rings to be distinctly different from those at Jupiter and Saturn. The ring system may be relatively young and did not form at the same time as Uranus. Particles that make up the rings may be remnants of a moon that was broken by a high-velocity impact or torn up by gravitational effects.

NEPTUNE When Voyager flew within 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) of Neptune on August 25, 1989, the planet was the most distant member of the solar system from the Sun. (Pluto once again will become most distant in 1999.)

Neptune orbits the Sun every 165 years. It is the smallest of our solar system's gas giants. Neptune is now known to have eight moons, six of which were found by Voyager. The length of a Neptunian day has been determined to be 16 hours, 6.7 minutes.

Even though Neptune receives only three percent as much sunlight as Jupiter does, it is a dynamic planet and surprisingly showed several large, dark spots reminiscent of Jupiter's hurricane-like storms. The largest spot, dubbed the Great Dark Spot, is about the size of Earth and is similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. A small, irregularly shaped, eastward-moving cloud was observed "scooting" around Neptune every 16 hours or so; this "scooter," as Voyager scientists called it, could be a cloud plume rising above a deeper cloud deck.

Long, bright clouds, similar to cirrus clouds on Earth, were seen high in Neptune's atmosphere. At low northern latitudes, Voyager captured images of cloud streaks casting their shadows on cloud decks below.

The strongest winds on any planet were measured on Neptune. Most of the winds there blow westward, or opposite to the rotation of the planet. Near the Great Dark Spot, winds blow up to 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) an hour.

The magnetic field of Neptune, like that of Uranus, turned out to be highly tilted -- 47 degrees from the rotation axis and offset at least 0.55 radii (about 13,500 kilometers or 8,500 miles) from the physical center. Comparing the magnetic fields of the two planets, scientists think the extreme orientation may be characteristic of flows in the interiors of both Uranus and Neptune -- and not the result in Uranus's case of that planet's sideways orientation, or of any possible field reversals at either planet. Voyager's studies of radio waves caused by the magnetic field revealed the length of a Neptunian day. The spacecraft also detected auroras, but much weaker than those on Earth and other planets.

Triton, the largest of the moons of Neptune, was shown to be not only the most intriguing satellite of the Neptunian system, but one of the most interesting in all the solar system. It shows evidence of a remarkable geologic history, and Voyager 2 images showed active geyser-like eruptions spewing invisible nitrogen gas and dark dust particles several kilometers into the tenuous atmosphere. Triton's relatively high density and retrograde orbit offer strong evidence that Triton is not an original member of Neptune's family but is a captured object. If that is the case, tidal heating could have melted Triton in its originally eccentric orbit, and the moon might even have been liquid for as long as one billion years after its capture by Neptune.

An extremely thin atmosphere extends about 800 kilometer (500 miles) above Triton's surface. Nitrogen ice particles may form thin clouds a few kilometers above the surface. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is about 14 microbars, 1/70,000th the surface pressure on Earth. The surface temperature is about 38 kelvins (-391 degrees Fahrenheit) the coldest temperature of any body known in the solar system.

The new moons found at Neptune by Voyager are all small and remain close to Neptune's equatorial plane. Names for the new moons were selected from mythology's water deities by the International Astronomical Union, they are: Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus.

Voyager 2 solved many of the questions scientists had about Neptune's rings. Searches for "ring arcs," or partial rings, showed that Neptune's rings actually are complete, but are so diffuse and the material in them so fine that they could not be fully resolved from Earth. From the outermost in, the rings have been designated Adams, Plateau, Le Verrier and Galle.

Interstellar Mission

The spacecraft are continuing to return data about interplanetary space and some of our stellar neighbors near the edges of the Milky Way.

As the Voyagers cruise gracefully in the solar wind, their fields, particles and waves instruments are studying the space around them. In May 1993, scientists concluded that the plasma wave experiment was picking up radio emissions that originate at the 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.

Exactly where the heliopause is has been one of the great unanswered questions in space physics. By studying the radio emissions, scientists now theorize the heliopause exists some 90 to 120 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.

The Voyagers have also 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 Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) is the only experiment on the scan platform that is still functioning. The scan platform is parked at a fixed position and is not being articulated. The Infrared Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS) heater was turned off to save power on Voyager 1 on December 7, 2011. On January 21, 2014 the Scan Platform Supplemental Heater was also turned off to conserve power. The IRIS heater and the Scan Platform Heater were used to keep UVS warm. The UVS temperature has dropped to below the measurement limits of the sensor; however, UVS is still operating. The scientist expect to continue to receive data from the UVS until 2016, at which time the instrument will be turned off to save power.

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 charge 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.

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China launches a new crew to its space station, advancing toward lunar mission

John Ruwitch

A Long March rocket carrying a crew of Chinese astronauts in a Shenzhou-18 spaceship lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Thursday. Andy Wong/AP hide caption

A Long March rocket carrying a crew of Chinese astronauts in a Shenzhou-18 spaceship lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Thursday.

JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China – China launched three astronauts into space on Thursday night, bound for the country's homemade space station where they will live and work for half a year.

The Shenzhou-18 launch is the latest in a series rotating taikonauts, as China calls its space explorers (the Chinese word for "space" is taikong ), through multi-month missions in orbit to conduct experiments and amass experience for eventual trips to the Moon and beyond.

The crewed missions are just one facet of an ambitious and fast-moving space program that international experts and officials worry could pose a threat to U.S. space superiority and military effectiveness on Earth.

NASA astronaut Tom Stafford, famed for U.S.-Soviet orbital handshake, has died at 93

Thursday's launch coincides with a visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who made stops in Shanghai and Beijing to advocate for a level playing field for U.S. businesses and press Beijing to stop supporting Russia's war effort against Ukraine.

From left, astronauts for China's Shenzhou-18 space mission Li Guangsu, Ye Guangfu and Li Cong wave during a departure ceremony before boarding a bus to take them to the Shenzhou-18 spacecraft at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert in northwest China on Thursday. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

From left, astronauts for China's Shenzhou-18 space mission Li Guangsu, Ye Guangfu and Li Cong wave during a departure ceremony before boarding a bus to take them to the Shenzhou-18 spacecraft at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert in northwest China on Thursday.

At one minute before 9 p.m., Shenzhou-18's Long March 2F rocket lit up the night and tore skyward to cheers from onlookers at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in remote western China.

A day earlier, China unveiled the crew — commander Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu. All are former fighter pilots, all born in the 1980s.

Third time's the charm: SpaceX's massive Starship reaches space

"I am thoroughly looking forward to the coming half-year of life in space. Embarking on this space expedition for the motherland is my greatest happiness," Li Guangsu told reporters the day before the flight.

The three taikonauts were not the only ones headed to the space station on Thursday. Several zebrafish were also slated to be part of the mission, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The crew will conduct more than 90 scientific experiments in orbit, including one that will try to establish a closed aquatic ecosystem with the minnows and a type of algae.

Well, hello, Voyager 1! The venerable spacecraft is once again making sense

"We hope that through this research we can understand the interaction between these plants and animals in space, so that in the future when we understand it we can establish a large-scale ecosystem with animals, plants and microorganisms ... and create a systematic loop and possibly a closed system so that people can live in space for long periods," said Zhang Wei, a professor of technology and engineering at the Center for Space Utilization at the Chinese Academy of Science.

The Shenzhou-18 crew will also add protective shielding to exposed pipes, wires and other systems on the outside of the space station, officials said. The previous crew discovered damage from space debris to a solar panel wire that CMSA says affected the power supply. They conducted space walks to fix it, but future damage from space debris is possible.

China's space program has come a long way in a relatively short period time, according to international experts. That has raised persistent concerns in the U.S., most recently from the commander of the U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting.

On Wednesday, Whiting told reporters that China had tripled its number of intelligence gathering satellites over the past six years, and he called the country's space advances "cause for concern."

Whiting said China's strides in space were helping it improve the effectiveness of its military on Earth. He also noted that China is developing a range of counter-space weapons — devices that can disable or disrupt other countries' space assets.

Indeed, China's space program is an outgrowth of the People's Liberation Army, with the crewed portion still directly under the military. Even many of the firms that comprise a growing commercial space sector have links to state-owned enterprises in the military industrial complex.

Still, some experts say calling competition between China and the United States a new space race is of debatable value.

"To me, it looks more like a very long endurance, no-end-in-sight, marathon. And the marathon we are running here in space is really against ourselves," says Svetla Ben-Itzhak, a space security expert at Johns Hopkins University.

She notes that while China has been making fast strides, the U.S. retains clear advantages in space — including operating close to 70% of all space assets, including satellites.

That leadership position, coupled with a growing dependence on space and a lack of transparency on the part of China, has fueled a security dilemma, she says.

U.S. law bans NASA from using government money to cooperate with China, and Beijing has been excluded from the International Space Station — part of the reason it developed its own space station.

China's endemic secrecy was apparent during a government-organized visit to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a small group of journalists.

Foreign reporters were housed in a town three hours by bus from the space center, while Chinese journalists stayed onsite. Trip details and schedules were withheld until the last minute. And plainclothes guards at the launch center kept a close eye on reporters to prevent them from wandering more than a few yards away from approved stops — or, at one location, aiming cameras at a camouflaged truck.

Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, who went into space in 2003 aboard Shenzhou-5, says China would welcome more cooperation with the United States.

"China has always wanted to cooperate with the United States," he says. "In space exploration, and especially crewed space exploration, international cooperation is a major trend...[and] it's a common need of humanity."

Zhang Wei, the scientist, says China will keep plowing ahead regardless of worries about its program from abroad.

"That's not important. We just need to do our best. We don't really need to worry about whatever others think of us," he says.

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Not every WNBA draft pick will make her team’s roster. Here’s why

Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark, middle, poses with general manager Lin Dunn, left, and head coach Christie Sides following a WNBA basketball news conference, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark speaks during a WNBA basketball news conference, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Stanford’s Cameron Brink, left, poses for a photo with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected second over by the Los Angeles Sparks during the first round of the WNBA basketball draft, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)

South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, left, poses for a photo with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected third overall by the Chicago Sky during the first round of the WNBA basketball draft, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)

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The WNBA draft is over, and superstars like No. 1 pick Caitlin Clark are heading toward surefire pro careers.

Not all 36 selections from his year’s draft will have such assurances. The league has 144 coveted roster spots among 12 teams, and other options for pro careers in women’s basketball either in the U.S. or overseas are scarce.

It’s a sharp contrast from men’s prospects who don’t make NBA rosters. They have more opportunities, including more overseas opportunities and playing in the G League.

The NBA also has 30 teams with 15 players allowed on the regular season roster, so there are more spots available.

Why don’t all WNBA draft picks make team rosters?

There’s a simple reason why being among those 36 draft picks doesn’t ensure a roster spot: most of the spots will be taken by returning players.

Only 19 of the 2023 picks played at least one game in the WNBA last season. Since 2018, 142 of 216 draft picks (65.7%) have played in a WNBA game at some point in their career.

The high mark was 28 of the 36 draftees in 2019.

Players have tried to carve out a WNBA chance by playing professionally overseas, but those jobs are also at a premium. Brittney Griner’s nine-month incarceration in Moscow along with the war in Ukraine have led to the elimination of dozens of potential jobs in Russia.

Will the top college stars make it in the WNBA?

Clark, the former Iowa player and the NCAA’s career leading scorer, was picked first overall by the Indiana Fever, and she’ll certainly get a chance. The same is likely true for Stanford’s Cameron Brink (No. 2, Los Angeles) and national champion South Carolina star Kamilla Cardoso (No. 3, Chicago).

Last year, only seven of 12 second-round picks and three of 12 third-round picks saw any regular-season action. That suggests nothing is guaranteed for NCAA Tournament standouts like UConn’s Nika Mühl (drafted No. 14, Seattle Storm) and Iowa’s Kate Martin (No. 18, Las Vegas Aces).

Why does it matter?

Of course, it’s disappointing for players who come so close to fulling their WNBA dreams but get squeezed out because of numbers. It also can be a big deal for fans who no longer get to see a favorite college player on the court.

“You can be a great college player and not make a WNBA roster,” ESPN WNBA analyst LaChina Robinson said last year. “You’re not only competing with players that are currently on the roster, but also a ton of women’s basketball players overseas that have been honing their skills and waiting for opportunity to break into the WNBA.”

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Navy veteran and survivor Brian Hopkins revisits HMAS Voyager collision, considers legacy and value of service

In 1964, Brian Hopkins survived Australia's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster, being one of the last to escape the sinking HMAS Voyager II. Now, more than 60 years later, the navy veteran revisits his past.

As Brian Hopkins walks below the deck of the retired warship HMAS Vampire for perhaps the final time, there are vivid memories at every turn.

"It's like being at home. It doesn't matter what ship you're on," he said.

"A ship is like a living being when it's operational. It's got a pulse."

Mr Hopkins, one of Australia's almost 500,000 former serving veterans, looks back fondly at his 20 years of service in the Australian navy.

That sense of pride extends to his first years, including the time spent as an engineer on the now-infamous HMAS Voyager II, a ship virtually identical to its sister ship Vampire.

The 79-year-old can still remember the intricate details of Voyager, like how the blue pipes that ran overhead were purposed for drinking water, or the sounds that would come out of the gun bay.

"This place used to moan and groan because it was operated by hydraulics," he said.

Above deck, Mr Hopkins explained the difference between a one deck and a front deck, the name of each turret and its function, and   the exact spot where HMAS Melbourne II collided with the destroyer causing catastrophic disaster.

"Back in 1964, just forward of where we are now, is where Melbourne sliced Voyager in half."

In 1964, Voyager was struck by the almost 20,000-tonne aircraft carrier off the coast of Jervis Bay during a training exercise.

Of the 314 people on board, 82 perished, making it the largest loss of military personnel during peacetime in Australian history.

Mr Hopkins was on board Voyager at the time of the collision.

He was one of the last two survivors to make it off the ship.

His first time stepping onboard Vampire was one week after the collision for a burial at sea.

"I've been to sea on the Vampire," Mr Hopkins said. "Only for a day." 

While it's been more than a decade   since he stood on a naval ship, and 42 years since he ended his service, Mr Hopkins, now living with terminal cancer, still has pride in the time he served.

"Once navy, always navy," he said. 

"The saltwater stays with you, no matter where you are."

'Possibly in my DNA'

As the son of both a veteran and someone who worked with water, Mr Hopkins said joining the navy was likely out of his control.

"It was something that I think was possibly in my DNA," he said.

As a boy, Mr Hopkins' father, who served for over five years during World War II, worked on the crew of Sydney Ferries and on the Eucambene Dam project.

"Watching the [Snowy River] waters rise, it sort of lured me I guess, as a youngster growing up."

Mr Hopkins enlisted when he was 17 years old in 1962. Soon he was aboard Voyager, serving as an engineer. He remembers the camaraderie between the crew, particularly among the engineers.

"We'd play sports quite often, especially in harbour," he said.

He can also remember his fondest memory, docking in the Japanese city of Karatsu.

"We were the first warship to go there in four years, and the first Australian warship to go there since World War II."

"There was a high school band that welcomed us. And when we left, we were like a cruise ship."

But after 13 months on board, the destroyer collided with Melbourne on the night of February 10, just before 9pm.

Following the collision, the forward section of the Voyager broke off and sank within 10 minutes.

The aft section initially remained afloat but, slowly, it began sinking into the sea, being submerged after midnight.

At the time, the 19-year-old Mr Hopkins was in the aft section, showering after a shift.

"I had a midshipman, Kerry Marien, double up with me. He was aspiring to be a naval engineer," he said.

"He went to have dinner in the boardroom and gave me a ring down the mess to say that the wardroom dinner was running late and that he'd give me a buzz when they'd finished, and we'd go trace out the feedwater system in a boiler room."

A loud bang led Mr Hopkins, with soap in his hair, to open the shower door, where he saw Voyager was hard up against the aircraft carrier.

Instinctively, he grabbed his clothes — a pair of work overalls — and sped towards an escape hatch.

"Buck Rogers — Jonathan Rogers — he was physically too large to fit through the escape hatch, and he was physically tossing guys through the escape hatch to escape," Mr Hopkins can remember.

"Being a Welshman, great voice, he was leading the guys that were trapped in [the] hymn — Abide With Me — as the forward section went under."

Mr Hopkins was one of the last two men to make it off Voyager, with the then-teenager removing his overalls to avoid sinking in the saltwater, swimming naked to a life raft.

"No-one has a 100 per cent idea of what happened that night because all those that do know perished on that night," he said.

"But it appears that [the cause] may have been a lack of situational awareness by the officers of the watch as to where Voyager was and where the carrier was."

Since the collision, two royal commissions were held in the 1960s to identify the cause.

Neither came to certain conclusions, but both were critical of the man at the helm of the Voyager, Captain Duncan Stevens, and his capacity to lead the ship.

There has also since been criticism of the lack of mental support by the navy for the survivors, including how there was no counselling but  simply a week off .

"The mentality of the time, from the naval hierarchy's viewpoint, was 'You fell off the horse, get back on sort-of thing'," Mr Hopkins said.

Mr Hopkins would continue to serve in the navy, shortly after being posted to an anti-submarine frigate, followed by a stint in the Vietnam War.

He remembers how one of his classmates, a "good bloke", died during the Vietnam War.

"He'd only just recently got married. He didn't want to get married at all."

In 1982, he completed his service, leaving as a chief petty officer in marine technician propulsion.

'Where destiny falls'

Despite the collision being more than 60 years ago, Mr Hopkins remembers plenty about it.

He can remember how some of the crew were playing tombola at the time.

He can recall the crew who relieved him that night, including Diepenbroek, his times on the watch with Macartney, and how he spent a weekend convincing Curgenven not to go AWOL.

"We spent all weekend talking him around to come back to the ship," Mr Hopkins recollected.

"They're guys that perished that night."

In the 30 years that followed, Mr Hopkins struggled. First, he brushed off any idea of any emotional or mental impacts.

"But unbeknownst to me, survivor's guilt started to rear its ugly head. I felt guilty of surviving the collision."

"Like many people, I took solace in the bottle. Probably drank more than I should have."

Mr Hopkins found he struggled to open up about the experience for 30 years, eventually finding support from both a therapist and his wife.

"It was something that I did take quite a while to come to terms with, and it's quite ironic given that the Voyager's motto is 'Quo Fata Vocant'. It means 'Where destiny falls'."

These days, Mr Hopkins tries not to reflect on it.

"It is what it is that happened," he said.

"Life goes on. And so do I."

'It's here for a reason'

Mr Hopkins's eventual peace with the night of the collision is clear by his feelings aboard the Vampire.

He says he doesn't believe he's experiencing any negative feelings being on the Vampire.

"In fact, I'm proud to be here, because I'm here with my family."

On board, he's surrounded by his family, including his daughter, granddaughter and 14-year-old great-granddaughter Juliet.

Equally, Mr Hopkins has accepted his cancer diagnosis.

In June 2023, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer, in his lungs.

From July to October, he underwent immunotherapy, followed by chemotherapy until January this year.

"When we started chemo, the [objective] was to hopefully survive until February to be able to attend the 60th anniversary [of the Voyager Collision]. I've managed to do that."

Mr Hopkins has no plan for further treatments, instead focusing on one day at a time.

The long-term goal is to make it to January 18 next year for his 80th birthday.

"But if I don't make it that far, so be it."

Looking forward, he has ideas of what he wants his legacy to be.

"My legacy, I hope, is that, through my life, they will understand that we can have trials and tribulations. But also, to remember those that went before us."

"I'd just like to convey that, not only do we remember those who served and paid the supreme sacrifice … we remember those that didn't see active service as such, but paid us the supreme sacrifice."

Speaking in between tears, Juliet came to a similar definition.

"Remembering what came before you. Just acknowledging the past. Acknowledging the way people were there," she said.

"It's here for a reason."

Reporting: Nabil Al-Nashar  and Sam Nichols

Digital production:  Sam Nichols

Photography: Brendan Esposito

Videography: Marcus Stimson

Video editing: Sebastian Dixon

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April 22 , 2024

Y1S1.5 Patch Notes

Raging Tides is heading towards its climax, with La Peste beginning his last stand in the Blighted Bastion.

With Update 1.5, we're bringing a host of much-requested quality-of-life gameplay improvements and fixes, while addressing key issues reported by the Skull and Bones community and improving the player experience.

Gameplay Updates

Seasonal rewards.

• Players who reach Diamond tier by the end of the current season will be eligible for vanity set 'Gilded Sin' Set

Activities & Events

Relocated the activities notification to the right side of the screen over the tracker widget.

• Tracker widget will disappear when the notification is visible.
• Loot notification appear up and pushes old notifications down.
• Included new notification for PVP encounters.

Only 1 notification will be displayed for all new available Empire Opportunities

• Players may select the "Empire Opportunities" notification to expand the Helm Overview to view the new opportunities available on the map.

Zamaharibu and Rode Maangodin returns to the Indian Ocean from 23rd April onwards, up till the end of Season 1 (28th May)

• Previously, players had to complete "From the Deep" contract before being able to pick up the bounty contract "Jaws of Retribution". After the update, players who are at Kingpin Infamy Tier will be eligible to pick up "Jaws of Retribution" contract from the Sainte-Anne or Telok Penjarah bounty board while the activity is scheduled.
• Previously, players had to complete "Oceans Apart" contract before being able to pick up the bounty contract "Anguish from the Abyss". After the update, players who are at Kingpin Infamy Tier will be eligible to pick up "Anguish from the Abyss" contract from the Sainte-Anne or Telok Penjarah bounty board while the activity is scheduled.

Updated number of Rode Maangodin clone ships to a maximum of 4 at any one time, even when players are grouped up while attempting "Anguish of the Abyss" bounty contract.

Increase world activity timer from 10 to 12 minutes for solo players attempting to engage in the La Peste world activity.

Added a cooldown period penalty for players that leave Hostile Takeover and Helm Wager after the activity begins.

• Hostile Takeover: Upon leaving the activity midway, the player would not be able to join any Hostile Takeover opportunities in the next 20 mins.
• Helm Wager: Upon leaving the activity midway, the player would not be able to join any Helm Wager opportunities in the next 30 mins.

Players can earn up to a maximum of 350k Pieces of Eight after successfully completing a Helm Wager.

• i.e player carries 600k Po8, starts and completes Helm Wager, they earn up to 350k Po8 for a total of 950k Po8.

Multiplayer (Co-op)

Increase Call-for-Help distance range from the local region to server-wide. Increased from 5000m >32000m.

Increase persistent duration of the Call-for-Help notification from 60 sec > 300 sec.

Improvements and Bug fixes

Fixed an issue where Players participating in a PvP activity with the PvP flag off could not heal other players with the flag off and not participating in a PvP activity.

Increased damage dealt by Rempah towers so they pose more challenge to players of similar Ship Rank.

The Helm & Empire Overview

Fixed an issue where the unfunded Manufactory continues to produce Pieces of Eight.

Fixed an issue where the incorrect 'Supply run' material was displayed on tooltip of the Empire Management upgrade "Discounted Supply Materials".

Fixed an issue where an inaccurate production rate for Pieces of Eight is displayed when player tries to fund any Manufactory after exiting the game.

Inventory & Storage

Contract items will no longer use up inventory slots.

Fixed an issue where excess quest items could not be removed from the player's inventory after completing the contracts.

Text & Voice Chat

Updated our voice and text chat in-game feedback in compliance with Ubisoft Player Safety Guidelines. Players can now choose to customize chat privacy settings through their Ubisoft Account page .

Additional information from Self-Help pages: Ubisoft account chat preferences

Fixed an issue where the contract tracker does not update to "Deliver: Plaguebringer Captain head" for 'Peste Control' contract.

Fixed an issue where "Anguish from the Abyss" bounty contract did not correctly end upon after a player group took down Rode Maangodin.

Fixed an issue where players cannot progress with the contract "The Arms Of Night" as "Van Kinckel's schemes" objective item was missing from inventory.

Fixed an issue where the contract "Hell's Blacksmith" cannot be completed because the player is able to hand over Ornate cannon outside of the contract.

Fixed an issue where the player cannot find the Usurper Leader in the contract "Nightfall Missives".

Fixed an issue where the DMC Patroller did not spawn during the contract "Twilight Keepers".

Fixed an issue where players are unable to interact with the crate should they interact with it without reading the 'Kinckel's Scheme' to progress with the contract "The Arms of Night".

Fixed a bug where the 2 Plaguebringer captains' heads is not correctly removed from the players' inventory after turning them in for the contract "Peste Control".

Interactions

Fixed an issue where the "Interact" prompt was unavailable when player was in combat at various forts.

Fixed an issue where players will get stuck when talking to the Carpenter in Sainte-Anne first.

Fixed an issue where the player to get stuck in the Vanity Atelier upon repeatedly pressing 'close' while on the captain customization screens.

Leaderboard

Fixed an issue where the weekly reset visually occurred a day early in the weekly leaderboard.

Fixed end-of-season reward string showing as invalid ID on the Leaderboard.

Fixed an issue affecting some players where Sovereigns were not being awarded to affected players that met achievement reward conditions.

UI & Notifications

Updated world event map markers to display on the edge of the map.

Updated Call-for-Help indicators to be displayed on the edge of the map edge when Call for Help is initiated.

Fixed an issue where the notification 'Pieces of Eight secured' pops up when the player who had accepted Helm Wager is sunk and respawns at sea.

Updated the 'dismiss' option for the Helm Wager opportunity from press to hold.

Fixed an issue where player cannot mark another player's ship on map whose PVP setting is 'On'.

Fixed an issue where Store Preview is stuck in infinite loading for "First Mate Whiskers" in seasonal tab.

Fixed an issue where the player can claim Smuggler Pass rewards before completing the prerequisite contract to interact with the NPC William Blackwood.

Mitigated an issue where player is unable to interact with game menus, objects and/or NPCs after collecting mail from mailbox and sprinting.

Fixed an issue where player will get stuck on black screen while repeatedly presses 'select 'and 'back' button in Settings menu.

Fixed an issue where purchasing Premium Pass using Battle Pass Tokens causes an error when purchasing the Premium Pass Bundle.

Fixed an issue where player receives notification 'Cannot afford more' while buying items in the Black Market despite having enough Pieces of Eight

Fixed the low-resolution icon of the 'White Skull Rum' when collecting the finished product from the Distillery.

Fixed the missing Contract icon for the contract item "van Kinckel's orders" letter for the contract 'Twilight Keepers'.

Fixed "Serpentine Slaughter" ship vanity icon to display the two-headed version for depicted for medium-sized ships.

Localization & Text

Fixed the incorrect text in the Empire Overview screen from "Season" to "Resets in".

Fixed an incorrect description for Ouroboros Armor to "heals 15% of damage braced" instead of "15% of hull health".

Fixed various localization issues in the Store.

Fixed a localisation issue where certain characters were displayed as "??" in the Maintenance notice.

Fixed an issue where translated text is missing for "End of season reward" on Seasonal Leaderboards when menu language is changed to other than English.

Updated various localization text.

[Codex] Removed descriptions and hints regarding the Carronade weapon from the Codex and the Blacksmith crafting screen.

[Codex] Percentage symbol is displayed twice on 'Offensive' and 'Utility' furniture tooltips in codex under Knowledge tab.

[Codex] Removed an unobtainable note displayed under the Telok Penjarah Knowledge menu.

Fixed a crash that occurs after fast travelling multiple times.

Fixed potential crash when archives have been read, and subsequently unspawned.

Fixed potential crash when status effect expires.

Fixed a crash that occurred after interacting with the "Embark" option after accepting the "First Blood" contract.

Fixed a server crash due to during outpost refresh, player with helm orders, quit the game or abandon the helm orders.

Fixed an issue where player will get stuck with loading screen after quitting the store menu opened by gold-purchased cosmetic items.

Fixed an issue where player gets stuck in a black screen at the settings menu after changing the subtitle language.

[Ubisoft Connect] Fixed an issue where the 'Time Limited Challenges' does not display progress.

[Ubisoft Connect] Fixed an issue where users are not informed about chat restrictions after changing the consent type.

Fixed an issue where the sails on a Brigantine would be distorted in the Docking screen.

Fixed an issue where a toggle glitch occurs when the player switches the setting for Microphone Input Device and Voice Chat Mode.

Robotic Voice is heard for a Crew Bark that is triggered during combat when audio is set to German.

General improvements to Matchmaking and re-matchmaking upon initial failure.

[Controls] Fixed an issue where the Playstation controller inputs affected in-game controls while Ubisoft Connect overlay is open.

Ongoing & Upcoming Season Events

The Blighted Bastion - 16 th April - 28 th May

Take on La Peste as he makes his last stand in Blighted Bastion. Thanks to William Blackwood, the location of La Peste's stronghold has been revealed.

The Opwelling - 30 th April - 7 th May

The DMC have deployed the Opwelling, a powerful warship. Designed to enable the DMC to cement their supremacy in the Indian Ocean. Do you have what it takes to take it on?

The Mizerja - 14 th May - 28 th May

The Fara's formidable warship has reappeared in another effort to impair the Sea People. Are you brave enough to take on this challenge?

Jaws of Retribution - 23 rd April - 28 th May

A mysterious create has returned once again to the East Indies. Its time to take on the Zamaharibu. And as we've said before, no it is most definitely not a pet.

Anguish from the Abyss - 23 rd April - 28 th May

Are you superstitious Captain? We've heard of these rumours that a DMC ship haunts these waters.

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