NASA’s Voyager 1 Makes Contact from 15 Billion Miles Away

The spaceship Voyager 1 stopped sending readable data back to Earth on November 14, 2023. However, it was still receiving commands from controllers.

In March, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found that a malfunctioning chip was the issue and developed a clever coding fix, enabling the spacecraft to return usable data about the status of its engineering systems. Voyager’s X handle, posted, “Hi, it’s me.

– V1,” and the next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft from Earth to enter the interstellar medium in 2012 and is currently over 15 billion miles away from our planet.

Messages sent from Earth take about 22.5 hours to reach the spacecraft, and its twin Voyager 2 also left the solar system in 2018. Both spacecraft carry “Golden Records,” containing a variety of information about Earth intended for extraterrestrials.

The records include a map of our solar system, a piece of uranium to allow recipients to date the spaceship’s launch, and symbolic instructions on how to play the record. These were selected by a committee chaired by astronomer Carl Sagan and include images, music, and sounds that can be played using an included stylus.

The spacecraft’s power banks are expected to be depleted sometime after 2025, after which they will continue to navigate the Milky Way potentially for eternity. *(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.

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