﻿Voyager Just Sent Back HORRIFYING Data to Earth Intro
The Voyager mission can be considered perhaps the most successful endeavor NASA has ever overtaken.
Nearly 4 and a half decades after launch and 14 billion miles away, the legendary probes continue
to send valuable data back to Earth. While the probes will run out of power at some point,
they have given humanity a glimpse of the great unknown. Latest reports from
NASA suggest that one of the probes has just sent back horrifying data that has shocked scientists.
Let's take a closer look. The Voyager Program
The Voyager program consists of two robotic interstellar probes, called Voyager 1 and Voyager
2 respectively. They were launched way back in 1977 making the program the longest one in human
history. What's even more inspiring though, is the fact that the probes continue to send back
data to the Earth to this very day making them an invaluable tool for space exploration. Even though
Voyager 2 was the first one to launch from Earth, the route it took to the stars meant it would be
the 2nd in the race to reach the heliosphere. The scope of the mission was to study the outer part
of the Solar system and gain knowledge about the outer planets and their moons. At first,
the mission was quite simple: Voyager 1 had to study the planetary systems of Jupiter
and Saturn and Voyager 2 had to study Uranus and Neptune. Currently, the Voyager space probes are
exploring the outer boundary of the heliosphere in interstellar space. As a result of their success,
the mission has been extended three times as they continue to transmit useful scientific data. It
was confirmed that on August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 had become the first man-made object to exit
the Solar system and enter interstellar space. A few years later it was also confirmed that
Voyager 2 also indicated it would enter interstellar space in 2018. As of 2021,
Voyager 1 was recorded moving at a velocity of around 38,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun.
It is currently more than 14.2 billion miles from Earth and data from 2012 suggests that the probe
has entered interstellar space. On the other hand, Voyager 2 was observed to be moving at a velocity
of around 34,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun and is more than 11.8 billion miles
from the Earth. Data from 2019 suggests that Voyager 2 has also gone interstellar. Evidence
suggests that the probe has reached a region of outer space called the interstellar medium.
Even though both the crafts have moved beyond the influence of the solar wind, they are still a long
way away from reaching the end of the Solar system. NASA estimates it will take another
14,000 to 28,000 years for Voyager one to emerge from the Oort cloud and exit the confines of the
Solar system. The data and photographs collected by the Voyager probes on their way to interstellar
space have been essential in revealing some of the mysteries about each of the four giant planets
in our neighborhood. The Voyager space probes are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators,
a type of nuclear battery. This is a type of battery that is perfect for missions needing
energy over a long period of time – which would be too long for fuel cells or batteries – and
that can't rely on solar energy. It allows us to organize very long missions to happen.
As such it's predicted that the batteries will no longer be functional from 2032 on,
about 55 years after the launch of the space probes, which is quite remarkable. However,
as time passed by, various functions and systems of the probes had to be switched off to keep the
main system in working order. Consequently, they'll be able to keep their current set
of scientific instruments on until 2025. The space probes were initially conceived
as part of the Mariner program whose purpose was to launch various robotic interplanetary
probes from 1962 to 1973 to investigate Mars, Venus, and Mercury. But as their mission has
been changed to go study Jupiter and Saturn, they were removed from the Mariner program. At first,
they kept their original name and were called the Mariner Jupiter-Saturn space probes. However,
due to their evolution from the Mariner space probes, their name was quickly changed to Voyager.
This new program took over many elements of the Grand Tour program. As indicated by his name,
the Grand Tour program, developed by NASA, aimed to send two groups of robotic probes
to all the planets part of the outer Solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, Uranus,
and Neptune. Yet this program was deemed too expensive, around 1 billion dollars. Consequently,
it was canceled and replaced with the Voyager program. For this reason, the Grand Tour program
had a major influence on the Voyager program, as it fulfilled a lot of the planned objectives for
the Grand tour, except for a visit to Pluto. Interstellar Exploration
Four years ago, the Voyager 2 probe became just the second human-made object in history to exit
the solar system and officially enter interstellar space. On November 5, 2018,
the craft officially left the solar system as it crossed the heliopause, the boundary that marks
the end of the heliosphere and the beginning of interstellar space. This area is the outermost
region of the solar system, sometimes referred to as "the bubble" and is located around 119
astronomical units from the sun. The spacecraft was able to analyze the makeup of solar winds,
the composition, and behavior of plasma particles, the interaction of cosmic rays,
the structure and direction of magnetic fields, and other traits that define the edges of the
solar system. This allowed the craft to make some shocking discoveries about the edge of our solar
system. Voyager 2's exit from the interstellar bubble was not without surprises. According to
the data, the bubble was found to be "very leaky". This is because the material from the solar bubble
was discovered out in interstellar space. Voyager 1 had found signs of a leaky bubble
as well. In that instance, however, interstellar material was found streaming into the bubble,
this is the opposite of what Voyager 2 discovered. The new findings confirm that
the leakiness of the heliopause, spotted in two very different parts of the heliosphere,
is not a rare characteristic of the bubble, although there is still no real explanation for
what’s causing it. Before the Voyager missions, scientists predicted that the solar bubble just
sort of dissolved into interstellar space as you ventured farther and farther from the sun.
Data from Voyager 2 seems to confirm this fact. The craft’s plasma wave instrument ended up
measuring plasma densities that were very much on par with what Voyager 1 detected. Because
solar plasma is so hot and interstellar plasma is incredibly cold the density of plasma jumps
up by a factor between 20 and 50 as you cross the border. Scientists note that this characteristic
of fluids forms very sharp boundaries. They were especially surprised that both Voyagers crossed
the heliopause at the same relative distances. Previous models heavily predicted that heightened
solar activity during Voyager 1's crossing in 2012 should have pushed the bubble's boundary farther
out. A period of low solar activity should have pulled the heliopause back a bit during Voyager
2's crossing which came later. The fact that both spacecraft left the solar system at pretty
much the same distance, at two very different locations, is a source of confusion at the moment.
Voyager 2 also made some observations that don’t square up with a sharp boundary—at least not what
we’d expect. The biggest of these is the magnetic field measurements inside and outside the bubble.
Astronomers expected the direction of the magnetic field would be very different between the two.
Yet when Voyager 2 crossed this thin surface, there was essentially no change in the direction
of the field. This is something Voyager 1 observed as well. At the same time, the magnetic field
observations on Voyager 2 suggest it found a thinner and simpler heliopause, filled with less
energetic particles, than what Voyager 1 crossed. Again, all this data taken together raises more
questions than it can answer. It is well known that the sun consistently spews out shock waves of
plasma called coronal mass ejections, which help shape the rest of the solar system. Turns out the
sun’s impact goes beyond its own borders. The new Voyager 2 data, like the Voyager 1 data before it,
shows how CMEs propagate past the heliopause and lower the number of cosmic rays beyond the bubble.
This is somewhat similar to what you might find out in the galaxy. Supernovae send shock
waves out into the galaxy as well, stirring the interstellar medium, albeit at a much more intense
scale than CMEs. Most astronomers believe that the formation of the solar system was triggered
by an interstellar shock wave from a supernova. If we think about the potential for cosmic rays
to promote biological mutations in life on Earth, these findings lend support to the idea that the
sun could also influence the evolution of living things on extraterrestrial worlds,
in this planetary system, and elsewhere. New Developments
The latest reports state that the engineering team with NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying
to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing
commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the
probe's attitude, articulation, and control system don't reflect what's happening onboard. The AACS
controls the 45-year-old spacecraft's orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1's high-gain
antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. All signs suggest the
AACS is still working, but the telemetry data it's returning is invalid. For instance,
the data may appear to be randomly generated or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could
be in. The issue hasn't triggered any onboard fault protection systems, which are designed
to put the spacecraft into "safe mode" – a state where only essential operations are carried out,
giving engineers time to diagnose an issue. Voyager 1's signal hasn't weakened, either,
which suggests the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation with Earth.
The team will continue to monitor the signal closely as they continue to determine whether
the invalid data is coming directly from the AACS or another system involved in
producing and sending telemetry data. Until the nature of the issue is better understood,
the team cannot anticipate whether this might affect how long the spacecraft can collect and
transmit science data. Voyager 1 is currently 14.5 billion miles from Earth, and it takes light 20
hours and 33 minutes to travel that difference. That means it takes roughly two days to send
a message to Voyager 1 and get a response – a delay the mission team is well accustomed to.
Scientists are hard at work trying to explain this new mystery and believe that the data
may be a result of the craft deteriorating due to age. The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old,
which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. They are also in interstellar space
which is a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. While
this is a big challenge for the team, scientists believe if a solution to the AACS issue exists,
they will find it. Another possibility is that the team may not find the source of the anomaly
and will instead adapt to it. If they do find the source, they may be able to solve the issue
through software changes or potentially by using one of the spacecraft’s redundant
hardware systems. It wouldn’t be the first time the Voyager team has relied on backup hardware:
In 2017, Voyager 1’s primary thrusters showed signs of degradation, so engineers switched to
another set of thrusters that had originally been used during the spacecraft’s planetary
encounters. Those thrusters worked, despite having been unused for 37 years. Voyager 1’s twin,
Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Outro
If you liked this video, you may also be interested in this one which talks
about NASA’s latest plan to colonize Venus. What do you think would happen if an alien
civilization discovered the voyager probes? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.