The Voyager 1 probe is an unfathomable 15 billion miles away, having traveled that distance since its launch way back in 1977. However, late last year NASA lost communications with the aged spacecraft and since then it has been silent. That is until now.
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00:00The Voyager 1 probe is an unfathomable 15 billion miles away, having traveled that distance
00:09since its launch way back in 1977.
00:11However, late last year, NASA lost communications with the aged spacecraft, and since then it
00:17has been silent.
00:18That is, until now, NASA scientists recently posted on X quote, we're back, baby, writing
00:23that our Voyager 1 spacecraft is conducting normal science operations for the first time
00:28since November 2023.
00:30All four instruments, which study plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles, are returning
00:34usable science data.
00:36NASA mission controllers began receiving strange readings from Voyager 1 just before the probe
00:40stopped communications.
00:41They believed it was either a malfunctioning chip or some sort of cosmic particle interference.
00:46In May, they were able to get a couple of Voyager's instruments to send back data, but
00:50it wasn't until more recently that they got the rest back up and transmitting, a massive
00:54achievement considering the spacecraft is nearly 50 years old.
00:58The Voyager 1 probe is the most distant human made object out in the cosmos.
01:02Having passed through the Kuiper belt, it is now in the furthest reaches of the solar
01:06system.
01:07Still, experts say that the Voyager probes will take three centuries to reach the hypothesized
01:11end of the sun's gravitational bounds and enter interstellar space.