The remarkable twin Voyager spacecraft continue to explore the outer reaches of the solar system decades after they completed their surveys of the Outer Planets. Launched in 1977 (September 5 for Voyager 1 (V1) and August 20 for Voyager 2 (V2), whose trajectory took it past Jupiter after Voyager 1), the spacecraft pair made many fundamental discoveries as they flew past Jupiter (March 1979 for V1, July 1979 for V2) and Saturn (November 1980 for V1, August 1981 for V2). The path of Voyager 2 past Saturn was targeted so that it continued within the plane of the solar system, allowing it to become the first spacecraft to visit Uranus (January 1986) and Neptune (August 1989). Following the Neptune encounter, both spacecraft started a new phase of exploration under the intriguing title of the Voyager Interstellar Mission.
Five instruments continue to collect important measurements of magnetic fields, plasmas, and charged particles as both spacecraft explore different portions of the solar system beyond the orbits of the planets. Voyager 1 is now more than 118 astronomical units (one AU is equal to the average orbital distance of Earth from the Sun) distant from the sun, traveling at a speed (relative to the sun) of 17.1 kilometers per second (10.6 miles per second). Voyager 2 is now more than 96 AU from the sun, traveling at a speed of 15.5 kilometers per second (9.6 miles per second). Both spacecraft are moving considerably faster than Pioneers 10 and 11, two earlier spacecraft that became the first robotic visitors to fly past Jupiter and Saturn in the mid-70s.
This processed color image of Jupiter was produced in 1990 by the U.S. Geological Survey from a Voyager image captured in 1979. The colors have been enhanced to bring out detail. Zones of light-colored, ascending clouds alternate with bands of dark, descending clouds. The clouds travel around the planet in alternating eastward and westward belts at speeds of up to 540 kilometers per hour. Tremendous storms as big as Earthly continents surge around the planet. The Great Red Spot (oval shape toward the lower-left) is an enormous anticyclonic storm that drifts along its belt, eventually circling the entire planet.
As seen in the night sky at Earth, Voyager 1 is within the confines of the constellation Ophiuchus, only slightly above the celestial equator; no telescope can see it, but radio contact is expected to be maintained for at least the next ten years. Voyager 2 is within the bounds of the constellation Telescopium (which somehow sounds quite appropriate) in the far southern night sky.
Both spacecraft have already passed something called the Termination Shock † (December 2004 for V1, August 2007 for V2), where the solar wind slows as it starts to interact with the particles and fields present between the stars. It is expected that both spacecraft will encounter the Heliopause, where the solar wind ceases as true interstellar space begins, from 10 to 20 years after crossing the Termination Shock. Theories exist for what should be present in interstellar space, but the Voyagers will become the first man-made objects to go beyond the influences of the Sun, hopefully returning the first measurements of what it is like out there. Each spacecraft is carrying a metal record with encoded sounds and sights from Earth, along with the needle needed to read the recordings, and simplified instructions for where the spacecraft came from, in case they are eventually discovered by intelligent extra-terrestrials.
Keep track of the Voyager spacecraft on the official Voyager Interstellar Mission website or follow @NASAVoyager2 on Twitter. † The sun ejects a continuous stream of charged particles (electrons, protons, etc) that is collectively termed the solar wind. The particles are traveling extremely fast and are dense enough to form a very tenuous atmosphere; the heliosphere represents the volume of space where the effects of the solar wind dominate over those of particles in interstellar space. The solar wind particles are moving very much faster than the local speed of sound represented by their low volume density. When the particles begin to interact with interstellar particles and fields (the interaction can be either physically running into other particles or experiencing an electromagnetic force resulting from a charged particle moving within a magnetic field), then they start to slow down. The point at which they become subsonic (rather than their normal hypersonic speed) is the Termination Shock.
We rely on the generous support of donors, sponsors, members, and other benefactors to share the history and impact of aviation and spaceflight, educate the public, and inspire future generations. With your help, we can continue to preserve and safeguard the world’s most comprehensive collection of artifacts representing the great achievements of flight and space exploration.
- Get Involved
- Host an Event
Thank you. You have successfully signed up for our newsletter.
Error message, sorry, there was a problem. please ensure your details are valid and try again..
- Free Timed-Entry Passes Required
- Terms of Use
Suggested Searches
- Climate Change
- Expedition 64
- Mars perseverance
- SpaceX Crew-2
- International Space Station
- View All Topics A-Z
Humans in Space
Earth & climate, the solar system, the universe, aeronautics, learning resources, news & events.
NASA Receives 13 Nominations for the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Through Astronaut Eyes, Virtual Reality Propels Gateway Forward
How NASA Spotted El Niño Changing the Saltiness of Coastal Waters
- Search All NASA Missions
- A to Z List of Missions
- Upcoming Launches and Landings
- Spaceships and Rockets
- Communicating with Missions
- James Webb Space Telescope
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Why Go to Space
- Astronauts Home
- Commercial Space
- Destinations
- Living in Space
- Explore Earth Science
- Earth, Our Planet
- Earth Science in Action
- Earth Multimedia
- Earth Science Researchers
- Pluto & Dwarf Planets
- Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
- The Kuiper Belt
- The Oort Cloud
- Skywatching
- The Search for Life in the Universe
- Black Holes
- The Big Bang
- Dark Energy & Dark Matter
- Earth Science
- Planetary Science
- Astrophysics & Space Science
- The Sun & Heliophysics
- Biological & Physical Sciences
- Lunar Science
- Citizen Science
- Astromaterials
- Aeronautics Research
- Human Space Travel Research
- Science in the Air
- NASA Aircraft
- Flight Innovation
- Supersonic Flight
- Air Traffic Solutions
- Green Aviation Tech
- Drones & You
- Technology Transfer & Spinoffs
- Space Travel Technology
- Technology Living in Space
- Manufacturing and Materials
- Science Instruments
- For Kids and Students
- For Educators
- For Colleges and Universities
- For Professionals
- Science for Everyone
- Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers
- STEM Engagement at NASA
- NASA's Impacts
- Centers and Facilities
- Directorates
- Organizations
- People of NASA
- Internships
- Our History
- Doing Business with NASA
- Get Involved
- Aeronáutica
- Ciencias Terrestres
- Sistema Solar
- All NASA News
- Video Series on NASA+
- Newsletters
- Social Media
- Media Resources
- Upcoming Launches & Landings
- Virtual Events
- Sounds and Ringtones
- Interactives
- STEM Multimedia
Altitude Chamber Gets Upgrade for Artemis II, Spacecraft Testing Begins
Media Get Close-Up of NASA’s Jupiter-Bound Europa Clipper
NASA’s PACE Data on Ocean, Atmosphere, Climate Now Available
NASA Shares Medical Expertise with New Space Station Partners
From NASA’s First Astronaut Class to Artemis II: The Importance of Military Jet Pilot Experience
Commercial Space Frequently Asked Questions
NASA’s Lola Fatoyinbo Receives Royal Geographical Society Prize
More Than 36,000 Volunteers Helped Do NASA Eclipse Science
NASA Names Finalists of the Power to Explore Challenge
NASA’s TESS Temporarily Pauses Science Observations
NASA’s New Hubble E-Book Spotlights Universe’s Best-Kept Dark Secrets
Accelerating Informatics for Earth Science
NASA Langley Team to Study Weather During Eclipse Using Uncrewed Vehicles
NASA Noise Prediction Tool Supports Users in Air Taxi Industry
ARMD Solicitations
NASA’s SERT II: ‘A Genuine Space Success Story’
Tech Today: Synthetic DNA Diagnoses COVID, Cancer
NASA Partnerships Bring 2024 Total Solar Eclipse to Everyone
Launch Week Event Details
La presentación del X-59 de la NASA personifica la tradición aeronáutica
45 years ago: voyager 1 begins its epic journey to the outer planets and beyond, johnson space center.
Forty-five years ago, the Voyager 1 spacecraft began an epic journey that continues to this day. The second of a pair of spacecraft, Voyager 1 lifted off on Sept. 5, 1977, 16 days after its twin left on a similar voyage. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, managed the two spacecraft on their missions to explore the outer planets. Taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment to use the gravity of one planet to redirect the spacecraft to the next, the Voyagers planned to use Jupiter’s gravity to send them on to explore Saturn and its large moon Titan. They carried sophisticated instruments to conduct their in-depth explorations of the giant planets. Both spacecraft continue to return data as they make their way out of our solar system and enter interstellar space.
In the 1960s, mission designers at JPL noted that the next occurrence of a once-every-175-year alignment of the outer planets would happen in the late 1970s. A spacecraft could take advantage of this opportunity to fly by Jupiter and use its gravity to bend its trajectory to visit Saturn, and repeat the process to also visit Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Launching several missions to visit each planet individually would take much longer and cost much more. The original plan to send two pairs of Thermoelectric Outer Planet Spacecraft on these Grand Tours proved too costly leading to its cancellation in 1971. The next year, NASA approved a scaled-down version of the project to send a pair of Mariner-class spacecraft in 1977 to explore just Jupiter and Saturn, with an expected five-year operational life. On March 7, 1977, NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher announced the renaming of these Mariner Jupiter/Saturn 1977 spacecraft as Voyager 1 and 2. Scientists held out hope that one of them could ultimately visit Uranus and Neptune, thereby fulfilling most of the original Grand Tour’s objectives – Pluto would have to wait several decades for its first visit.
Each Voyager carried a suite of 11 instruments to study the planets during each encounter and to learn more about interplanetary space in the outer reaches of the solar system, including:
- An imaging science system consisting of narrow-angle and wide-angle cameras to photograph the planet and its satellites.
- A radio science system to determine the planet’s physical properties.
- An infrared interferometer spectrometer to investigate local and global energy balance and atmospheric composition.
- An ultraviolet spectrometer to measure atmospheric properties.
- A magnetometer to analyze the planet’s magnetic field and interaction with the solar wind.
- A plasma spectrometer to investigate microscopic properties of plasma ions.
- A low-energy charged particle device to measure fluxes and distributions of ions.
- A cosmic ray detection system to determine the origin and behavior of cosmic radiation.
- A planetary radio astronomy investigation to study radio emissions from Jupiter.
- A photopolarimeter to measure the planet’s surface composition.
- A plasma wave system to study the planet’s magnetosphere.
Voyager 1 lifted off on Sept. 5, 1977, atop a Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. Two weeks after its launch, from a distance of 7.25 million miles, Voyager 1 turned its camera back toward its home planet and took the first single-frame image of the Earth-Moon system. The spacecraft successfully crossed the asteroid belt between Dec. 10, 1977, and Sept. 8, 1978.
Although Voyager 1 launched two weeks after its twin, it traveled on a faster trajectory and arrived at Jupiter four months earlier. Voyager 1 conducted its observations of Jupiter between Jan. 6 and April 13, 1979, making its closest approach of 216,837 miles from the planet’s center on March 5. The spacecraft returned 19,000 images of the giant planet, many of Jupiter’s satellites, and confirmed the presence of a thin ring encircling it. Its other instruments returned information about Jupiter’s atmosphere and magnetic field. Jupiter’s massive gravity field bent the spacecraft’s trajectory and accelerated it toward Saturn.
Voyager 1 began its long-range observations of Saturn on Aug. 22, 1980, passed within 114,500 miles of the planet’s center on Nov. 12, and concluded its studies on Dec. 14. Because of its interest to scientists, mission planners chose the spacecraft’s trajectory to make a close flyby of Saturn’s largest moon Titan – the only planetary satellite with a dense atmosphere – just before the closest approach to the planet itself. This trajectory, passing over Saturn’s south pole and bending north over the plane of the ecliptic, precluded Voyager 1 from making any additional planetary encounters. The spacecraft flew 4,033 miles from Titan’s center, returning images of its unbroken orange atmosphere and high-altitude blue haze layer. During the encounter, Voyager 1 returned 16,000 photographs, imaging Saturn, its rings, many of its known satellites and discovering several new ones, while its instruments returned data about Saturn’s atmosphere and magnetic field.
On Feb. 14, 1990, more than 12 years after it began its journey from Earth and shortly before controllers permanently turned off its cameras to conserve power, Voyager 1 spun around and pointed them back into the solar system. In a mosaic of 60 images, it captured a “family portrait” of six of the solar system’s planets, including a pale blue dot called Earth more than 3.7 billion miles away. Fittingly, these were the last pictures returned from either Voyager spacecraft. On Feb. 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object, overtaking the Pioneer 10 spacecraft on their way out of the solar system. In February 2020, to commemorate the photograph’s 30th anniversary, NASA released a remastered version of the image of Earth as Pale Blue Dot Revisited .
On New Year’s Day 1990, both spacecraft officially began the Voyager Interstellar Mission as they inexorably made their escape from our solar system. On Aug. 25, 2012, Voyager 1 passed beyond the heliopause, the boundary between the heliosphere, the bubble-like region of space created by the Sun, and the interstellar medium. Its twin followed suit six years later. Today , 45 years after its launch and 14.6 billion miles from Earth, four of Voyager 1’s 11 instruments continue to return useful data, having now spent 10 years in interstellar space. Signals from the spacecraft take nearly 22 hours to reach Earth, and 22 hours for Earth-based signals to reach the spacecraft. Engineers expect that the spacecraft will continue to return data from interstellar space until about 2025 when it will no longer be able to power its systems. And just in case an alien intelligence finds it one day, Voyager 1 like its twin carries a gold-plated record that contains information about its home planet, including recordings of terrestrial sounds, music, and greetings in 55 languages. Engineers at NASA thoughtfully included Instructions on how to play the record.
The voyage continues…
In Evidence
Ephemeris Calculator
Compute Voyager 1 ephemerides for any date and time between 01 Jan 1970 and 01 Jan 1970 and display the predicted position in an interactive sky map.
- Where is Voyager 1?
Voyager 1 is currently in the constellation of Ophiucus . The current Right Ascension is 17h 16m 14s and the Declination is +12° 18’ 27”.
Right now, from the selected location (Greenwich, United Kingdom edit_location_alt ), Voyager 1 can be observed looking in the East-South-East direction at an altitude of 26° degrees above the horizon (view Voyager 1 position on a interactive sky map ).
emoji_objects If you access this data frequently and would like to have a more synthetic view, you can create a Quick Access Page for this object and bookmark it or add it to your Home Screen.
See also the following additional resources about Voyager 1
- Voyager 1 Information on TheSkyLive.com
- How far is Voyager 1 from Earth?
- When does Voyager 1 rise and set?
- Interactive sky map
- Live position tracker
We finally know why NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft stopped communicating — scientists are working on a fix
The first spacecraft to explore beyond the solar system started spouting gibberish late last year. Now, NASA knows why.
NASA engineers have discovered the cause of a communications breakdown between Earth and the interstellar explorer Voyager 1. It would appear that a small portion of corrupted memory exists in one of the spacecraft's computers.
The glitch caused Voyager 1 to send unreadable data back to Earth, and is found in the NASA spacecraft's flight data subsystem (FDS). That's the system responsible for packaging the probe's science and engineering data before the telemetry modulation unit (TMU) and radio transmitter send it back to mission control.
The source of the issue began to reveal itself when Voyager 1 operators sent the spacecraft a "poke" on March 3, 2024. This was intended to prompt FDS to send a full memory readout back to Earth.
The readout confirmed to the NASA team that about 3% of the FDS memory had been corrupted, and that this was preventing the computer from carrying out its normal operations.
Related: NASA finds clue while solving Voyager 1's communication breakdown case
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 followed its spacecraft sibling out of the solar system in 2018, and is still operational and communicating well with Earth.
After 11 years of interstellar exploration, in Nov. 2023, Voyager 1's binary code — the computer language it uses to communicate with Earth — stopped making sense. Its 0's and 1's didn't mean anything anymore.
Get the Space.com Newsletter
Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!
"Effectively, the call between the spacecraft and the Earth was still connected, but Voyager's 'voice' was replaced with a monotonous dial tone," Voyager 1's engineering team previously told Space.com .
The team strongly suspects this glitch is the result of a single chip that's responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory ceasing to work.
Currently, however, NASA can’t say for sure what exactly caused that particular issue. The chip could have been struck by a high-speed energetic particle from space or, after 46 years serving Voyager 1, it may simply have worn out.
— Voyager 2: An iconic spacecraft that's still exploring 45 years on
— NASA's interstellar Voyager probes get software updates beamed from 12 billion miles away
— NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft extends its interstellar science mission for 3 more years
Voyager 1 currently sits around 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, which means it takes 22.5 hours to receive a radio signal from it — and another 22.5 hours for the spacecraft to receive a response via the Deep Space Network's antennas. Solving this communication issue is thus no mean feat.
Yet, NASA scientists and engineers are optimistic they can find a way to help FDS operate normally, even without the unusable memory hardware.
Solving this issue could take weeks or even months, according to NASA — but if it is resolved, Voyager 1 should be able to resume returning science data about what lies outside the solar system.
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].
Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.
SpaceX launches advanced weather satellite for US Space Force (video)
SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites in nighttime liftoff (photos, video)
My formal 2024 solar eclipse apology
- jcs Funny timing for this article, when I am streaming an old Star Trek movie. So, surely this didn't cause a 3 byte glitch removing the O, Y and A from Voyager's name buffer? Get it? Reply
- bwana4swahili It is quite amazing it has lasted this long in a space environment. Reply
bwana4swahili said: It is quite amazing it has lasted this long in a space environment.
- View All 3 Comments
Most Popular
By Tereza Pultarova April 11, 2024
By Keith Cooper April 11, 2024
By Jamie Carter April 11, 2024
By Mike Wall April 11, 2024
By Robert Z. Pearlman April 11, 2024
By Joe Rao April 10, 2024
By Robert Lea April 10, 2024
By Mike Wall April 10, 2024
By Brett Tingley April 10, 2024
By Jamie Carter April 10, 2024
By Jeff Spry April 10, 2024
- 2 Achoo! Baby star 'sneezes' tell astronomers a lot about their development
- 3 A NASA spacecraft spotted something weird orbiting the moon. It was just a lunar neighbor (photos)
- 4 Monster star gains magnetic personality following stellar merger
- 5 Car-sized asteroid gives Earth a super-close shave with flyby closer than some satellites
NASA Voyager Status Update on Voyager 1 Location
The consensus of the Voyager science team is that Voyager 1 has not yet reached interstellar space.
News Media Contact
Jia-Rui Cook
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0724
NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround.
For the past five months, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady stream of unreadable gibberish back to Earth. Now, NASA engineers finally know why.
The 46-year-old spacecraft sends regular radio signals as it drifts further from our solar system . But in November 2023, the signals suddenly became garbled, meaning scientists were unable to read any of its data, and they were left mystified about the fault's origins.
In March, NASA engineers sent a command prompt, or "poke," to the craft to get a readout from its flight data subsystem (FDS) — which packages Voyager 1's science and engineering data before beaming it back to Earth.
After decoding the spacecraft's response, the engineers have found the source of the problem: The FDS's memory has been corrupted.
Related: NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish
"The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn't working," NASA said in a blog post Wednesday (March 13) . "Engineers can't determine with certainty what caused the issue. Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years."
— NASA hears 'heartbeat' signal from Voyager 2 probe a week after losing contact
— Historic space photo of the week: Voyager 2 spies a storm on Saturn 42 years ago
— NASA reestablishes full contact with Voyager 2 probe after nail-biting 2-week blackout
Although it may take several months, the engineers say they can find a workaround to run the FDS without the fried chip — restoring the spacecraft's messaging output and enabling it to continue to send readable information from outside our solar system.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 zipped past Saturn and Jupiter in 1979 and 1980 before flying out into interstellar space in 2012. It is now recording the conditions outside of the sun's protective magnetic field , or heliosphere, which blankets our solar system.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes 22.5 hours for any radio signal to travel from the craft to our planet.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
NASA spacecraft snaps mysterious 'surfboard' orbiting the moon. What is it?
The moon is getting its own time zone, White House memo to NASA reveals
Why I watched the solar eclipse with my kids, a goose and 2,000 trees
- TorbjornLarsson Bon voyage, Voyager! Reply
- Jay McHue What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪 Reply
Jay McHue said: What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪
admin said: Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround. NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system : Read more
sourloaf said: What does FSB mean?
Rusty Lugnuts said: Where are you seeing "FSB"? The closest thing I can see in the article is "FDS". In modern computers, FSB would most likely refer to the Fr0nt S1ide Bu5, though I have no idea if a system as old as Voyagers, let alone engineered so specifically, would have an FSB. (apparently I can't spell out "Fr0nt S1ide Bu5" or my post gets flagged as spam or inappropriate??)
- SkidWard Just cut the % of ram needed... skip the bad sectors Reply
- kloudykat FDS = fl1ght da1a sub5ystem5 Reply
- 5ft24dave This is pretty old news, like 6 months old. Are you guys just now discovering this? Reply
Commodore Browncoat said: That's about as sane a theory as many of the others that have become ridiculously popular in the past several years, so sure - why not? What reply do you think we should send?
- View All 11 Comments
Most Popular
By Peter Ray Allison April 10, 2024
By Tom Metcalfe April 09, 2024
By Rebecca Sohn April 09, 2024
By Stephanie Pappas April 09, 2024
By Samantha Mathewson April 09, 2024
By Nicoletta Lanese April 09, 2024
By Sascha Pare April 09, 2024
By Emily Cooke April 09, 2024
By Harry Baker April 09, 2024
- 2 Here are the best photos of the April 8 total solar eclipse over North America
- 3 Part of the San Andreas fault may be gearing up for an earthquake
- 4 Pet fox with 'deep relationship with the hunter-gatherer society' buried 1,500 years ago in Argentina
- 5 NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system
- 2 Pet fox with 'deep relationship with the hunter-gatherer society' buried 1,500 years ago in Argentina
- 3 No, you didn't see a solar flare during the total eclipse — but you may have seen something just as special
- 4 Neolithic women in Europe were tied up and buried alive in ritual sacrifices, study suggests
- 5 Superfast drone fitted with new 'rotating detonation rocket engine' approaches the speed of sound
Hubble Provides Interstellar Road Map for Voyagers’ Galactic Trek
NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our solar system. Along the way, they are measuring the interstellar medium, the mysterious environment between stars. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is providing the road map – by measuring the material along the probes’ future trajectories. Even after the Voyagers run out of electrical power and are unable to send back new data, which may happen in about a decade, astronomers can use Hubble observations to characterize the environment through which these silent ambassadors will glide.
A preliminary analysis of the Hubble observations reveals a rich, complex interstellar ecology, containing multiple clouds of hydrogen laced with other elements. Hubble data, combined with the Voyagers, have also provided new insights into how our sun travels through interstellar space.
“This is a great opportunity to compare data from in situ measurements of the space environment by the Voyager spacecraft and telescopic measurements by Hubble,” said study leader Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. “The Voyagers are sampling tiny regions as they plow through space at roughly 38,000 miles per hour. But we have no idea if these small areas are typical or rare. The Hubble observations give us a broader view because the telescope is looking along a longer and wider path. So Hubble gives context to what each Voyager is passing through.”
The astronomers hope that the Hubble observations will help them characterize the physical properties of the local interstellar medium. “Ideally, synthesizing these insights with in situ measurements from Voyager would provide an unprecedented overview of the local interstellar environment,” said Hubble team member Julia Zachary of Wesleyan University.
The team’s results will be presented Jan. 6 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas.
NASA launched the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977. Both explored the outer planets Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune.
The pioneering Voyager spacecraft are currently exploring the outermost edge of the sun’s domain . Voyager 1 is now zooming through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying stars.
Voyager 1 is 13 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest human-made object ever built. In about 40,000 years, after the spacecraft will no longer be operational and will not be able to gather new data, it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 10.5 billion miles from Earth, and will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in about 40,000 years.
For the next 10 years, the Voyagers will be making measurements of interstellar material, magnetic fields and cosmic rays along their trajectories. Hubble complements the Voyagers’ observations by gazing at two sight lines along each spacecraft’s path to map interstellar structure along their star-bound routes. Each sight line stretches several light-years to nearby stars. Sampling the light from those stars, Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measures how interstellar material absorbs some of the starlight, leaving telltale spectral fingerprints.
Hubble found that Voyager 2 will move out of the interstellar cloud that surrounds the solar system in a couple thousand years. The astronomers, based on Hubble data, predict that the spacecraft will spend 90,000 years in a second cloud and pass into a third interstellar cloud.
An inventory of the clouds’ composition reveals slight variations in the abundances of the chemical elements contained in the structures. “These variations could mean the clouds formed in different ways, or from different areas, and then came together,” Redfield said.
An initial look at the Hubble data also suggests that the sun is passing through clumpier material in nearby space, which may affect the heliosphere, the large bubble containing our solar system that is produced by our sun’s powerful solar wind. At its boundary, called the heliopause, the solar wind pushes outward against the interstellar medium. Hubble and Voyager 1 made measurements of the interstellar environment beyond this boundary, where the wind comes from stars other than our sun.
“I’m really intrigued by the interaction between stars and the interstellar environment,” Redfield said. “These kinds of interactions are happening around most stars, and it is a dynamic process.”
The heliosphere is compressed when the sun moves through dense material, but it expands back out when the star passes through low-density matter. This expansion and contraction is caused by the interaction between the outward pressure of the stellar wind, composed of a stream of charged particles, and the pressure of the interstellar material surrounding a star.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. The Voyagers were built by JPL, which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech.
For images and more information about the local interstellar medium and Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
For more information about the Voyager mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/voyager
For additional information, contact:
Felicia Chou NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. 202-358-0257 [email protected]
Donna Weaver / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514 [email protected] / [email protected]
Elizabeth Landau Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6425 [email protected]
Seth Redfield Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 860-685-3669 [email protected]
Related Terms
- Astrophysics
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Hubble Space Telescope
Explore More
NASA’s PACE Data on Ocean, Atmosphere, Climate Now Available
NASA is now publicly distributing science-quality data from its newest Earth-observing satellite, providing first-of-their-kind measurements of ocean health, air quality, and the effects of a changing climate. The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite was launched on Feb. 8, and has been put through several weeks of in-orbit testing of the spacecraft and instruments to ensure […]
NASA’s TESS Temporarily Pauses Science Observations
Shawnta Ball Turns Obstacles into Opportunities in Goddard’s Education Office
When it comes to transforming obstacles into opportunities, it’s all about a “grow where you’re planted” mentality, says Shawnta Ball, a program support specialist in Goddard’s education office. Name: Shawnta Ball Title: Program Support Specialist Formal Job Classification: Administrative Support Assistant Organization: Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM, Code 160) How would you describe your job […]
Discover More Topics From NASA
James Webb Space Telescope
Perseverance Rover
Parker Solar Probe
NASA Decodes the Reason Behind Voyager 1's Garbled Transmissions
For months, NASA's Voyager team has been struggling to translate garbled messages from beyond our solar system. Voyager 1 has been responding to NASA's data requests with tangles of 1s and 0s, none of which have made sense to anyone at the agency. But now, thanks to a "poke command" issued in March, the spacecraft seems to have helped scientists identify the error behind its wonky transmissions.
NASA had just managed to solve an issue with Voyager 1's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) in 2022 when a new glitch arose, jumbling the probe's flight data. This raw data is supposed to convey information about what Voyager 1's various scientific instruments have gleaned from remote regions of the Milky Way, but instead, it was just a mysterious stream of unintelligible numbers. Getting the spacecraft to return to its original "language" has been a challenge ever since, in part because most of the folks who originally worked on Voyager 1 are no longer alive .
In March, NASA sent Voyager 1 a poke command, or a command that directly modifies a system's memory addresses. Though poke commands are a fairly antiquated concept, they're occasionally useful for low-level memory control—a stone the Voyager team couldn't leave unturned. Their command prompted Voyager 1's system into using a different readout sequence for its software package than it typically defaults to, and about 22 hours later, NASA found itself with a new clue.
According to a Voyager mission blog post , activity from one portion of Voyager 1's flight data system (FDS) stood out from the probe's previous unreadable transmissions. A single engineer involved in NASA's Deep Space Network saw that the data contained a readout of Voyager 1's full FDS memory. This, the engineer noticed, offered the team an opportunity to compare and contrast Voyager 1's previous FDS readout with the latest snapshot of its inner workings.
NASA has since used the decoded readout to determine that roughly 3 percent of the probe's memory is corrupted. This may explain why restarting the FDS didn't resolve the issue back in November: If a system's memory has degraded, turning that system off and back on again won't do anything to bring it back. Luckily, engineers at the Voyager mission think the corruption is confined to just one chip, which could make the issue easier to circumvent or resolve.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Note: Because Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 1 is speeding away from the inner solar system, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of year. Distance from Sun: This is a real-time indicator of Voyagers' straight-line distance from the sun in astronomical units (AU) and either miles (mi ...
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. ... The inner edge of the stagnation region is located approximately 113 AU from the Sun. Heliopause
In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space on November 5, 2018 and scientists hope to learn more about this region. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific ...
This is a real-time indicator of Voyager 1's distance from Earth in astronomical units (AU) and either miles (mi) or kilometers (km). Note: Because Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 1 is speeding away from the inner solar system, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of year.
About the mission. Voyager 1 reached interstellar space in August 2012 and is the most distant human-made object in existence. Launched just shortly after its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, in 1977, Voyager 1 explored the Jovian and Saturnian systems discovering new moons, active volcanoes and a wealth of data about the outer solar system.
Mission Overview. The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-40-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between ...
818-354-0724. [email protected]. Dwayne Brown. 202-358-1726. [email protected]. 2012-381. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space.
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, to study the outer Solar System and beyond. It is currently the most distant human-made object from Earth, having traveled over 14 billion miles (23 billion kilometers) from the Sun. Voyager 1's mission has included flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, with the goal of studying their moons, rings, and magnetic fields.
Voyager 1 is the first spacecraft to travel beyond the solar system and reach interstellar space . The probe launched on Sept. 5, 1977 — about two weeks after its twin Voyager 2 — and as of ...
Voyager 2 is now more than 96 AU from the sun, traveling at a speed of 15.5 kilometers per second (9.6 miles per second). Both spacecraft are moving considerably faster than Pioneers 10 and 11, two earlier spacecraft that became the first robotic visitors to fly past Jupiter and Saturn in the mid-70s. This processed color image of Jupiter was ...
Voyager 1 was part of a twin-spacecraft mission with Voyager 2. The twin-spacecraft mission took advantage of a rare orbital positioning of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune that permitted a multiplanet tour with relatively low fuel requirements and flight time. The alignment allowed each spacecraft, following a particular trajectory, to use its fall into a planet's gravitational field to ...
Today, 45 years after its launch and 14.6 billion miles from Earth, four of Voyager 1's 11 instruments continue to return useful data, having now spent 10 years in interstellar space. Signals from the spacecraft take nearly 22 hours to reach Earth, and 22 hours for Earth-based signals to reach the spacecraft.
Voyager 1 is a small craft, weighing barely 1,820 pounds (825.5 kilograms). Its most prominent feature is a 12-foot (3.7-meter) dish antenna for talking with Earth—when there's no straight ...
This visualization tracks the trajectory of the Voyager 1 spacecraft through the solar system. Launched on September 5, 1977, it was one of two spacecraft sent to visit the giant planets of the outer solar system. Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn before being directed out of the solar system.To fit the 40 year history of the mission into a short visualization, the pacing of time ...
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.) ... 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 ...
Voyager 1 live position and data. This page shows Voyager 1 location and other relevant astronomical data in real time. The celestial coordinates, magnitude, distances and speed are updated in real time and are computed using high quality data sets provided by the JPL Horizons ephemeris service (see acknowledgements for details). The sky map shown in the background represents a rectangular ...
Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018. Mission Type.
We now have five spacecraft that have either reached the edges of our solar system or are fast approaching it: Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons. Most of these probes ...
Altitude: 7.5° Azimuth: 79.7° Direction: East. Voyager 1 is currently in the constellation of Ophiucus. The current Right Ascension is 17h 16m 20s and the Declination is +12° 16' 28". Right now, from the selected location (Greenwich, United Kingdom edit_location_alt ), Voyager 1 can be observed looking in the East direction at an ...
Voyager 1 currently sits around 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, which means it takes 22.5 hours to receive a radio signal from it — and another 22.5 hours for the spacecraft ...
The consensus of the Voyager science team is that Voyager 1 has not yet reached interstellar space. "The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "It is the consensus of the Voyager ...
NASA Voyager Status Update on Voyager 1 Location. Artist concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech › larger image. "The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 zipped past Saturn and Jupiter in 1979 and 1980 before flying out into interstellar space in 2012. It is now recording the conditions outside of the sun's protective ...
For months now, the most distant spacecraft to Earth - Voyager 1 - has been talking gibberish on the interplanetary 'radio'. The repetitive jumble of 1s and 0s it's sending back to our planet, 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) away, has made no sense to scientists until now. Turns out, officials at NASA just needed to give the oh-so ...
The glitch paused Voyager 1's science work and kicked off a long-distance diagnosis process. The team traced the issue to the flight data subsystem, a computer that talks to the spacecraft's ...
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 visited the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The spacecraft is now 13 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest and fastest-moving human-made object ever built. In fact, Voyager 1 is now zooming through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying ...
NASA had just managed to solve an issue with Voyager 1's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) in 2022 when a new glitch arose, jumbling the probe's flight data. This raw data is ...