On August 20th 1977 an extraordinary spacecraft left this planet on a journey
like no other Voyager 2 was going to show us for the first time what the outer solar
system planets looked like close up reaching Milestones that have paved the way for future
exploration the Voyager Mission has achieved many Feats that still remain unbeaten and
what's more an extension may be underway welcome to fact nominal in today's video
we'll be talking about the achievements of the incredibly successful Voyager program
and what comes next as NASA gears up for its most ambitious Interstellar Mission yet
foreign in the 1960s NASA proposed a large-scale exploration of space a project which was called
The Grand Tour this project involved launching two sets of robotic probes
into space to patrol all the planets of our solar system Unfortunately The Grand Tour was
shut down due to its high cost and the Voyager program was proposed as a more budget-friendly
replacement the Voyager program which was launched in 1977 involved the deployment
of two probes into the solar system the twin probes Voyager 1 and 2 were designed to fly
past Jupiter and Saturn taking advantage of an unusual solar system alignment in 2022 45 years
later both spacecraft are still in operation exceeding everyone's expectations foreign
ER 1 was launched on September 5th 1977 and as of August 2022 it's located about 23 and a half
billion kilometers away from Earth and moving at a speed of 60,000 kilometers per hour within the
first two years of its launch the spacecraft took its first picture of Jupiter along with its moons
including IO the most volcanically active world in the solar system after taking pictures of the
giant planet Voyager 1 did a flyby past Saturn and its largest moon Titan according to NASA in
1998 Voyager 1 became the most distant man-made object in space a record it still holds today
in 2012 the spacecraft became the first man-made object to cross the heliosphere which is basically
the edge of the solar system and the boundary of interstellar space since its emergence beyond the
heliosphere Voyager one has been detecting more cosmic rays than solar particles Linda spilker
voyager's Deputy project scientist at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory said in a statement
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 on September 5th 2022 the astronomy Community marked the 45th
anniversary of the spacecraft's presence in space Reminiscing on some of its Milestones considering
how long Voyager 1 has been traveling the harsh conditions of space it comes as no surprise that
some of its elements are no longer operational some have been damaged and some turned off by
NASA however the probe still has four functional elements events that send data to Earth a few
days before this anniversary NASA detected a glitch from the spacecraft that caused it to
rely on an inactive computer this resulted in the probe Gathering and transmitting incorrect
data to Earth although NASA managed to fix the glitch they're still looking to find out what
caused it in the first place not bad considering the mission was originally intended to last just
four years Voyager 1 is now back on track but Nessa stated that more elements of the
spacecraft will be turned off as its nuclear power source continues to diminish long after
its power has been exhausted Voyager 1 along with its golden record will continue floating through
space for eons to come marking the beginnings of our attempts to explore the universe foreign
ER 2 was launched on a trajectory that took longer to get to Jupiter and Saturn therefore
it accomplished this feat about a year after Voyager 1. regardless this spacecraft is just
as powerful and has achieved its own Milestones while Voyager 1 was explicitly designed to parade
Jupiter and Saturn Voyager 2 was built to pay more attention to ice giants Uranus in Neptune within
a decade of its launch Voyager 2 fulfilled its primary missions visiting Jupiter in 1979 Saturn
in 1981 Uranus in 1986 and the neptunian system in 1989. to date this spacecraft is the only man-made
object to reach both Uranus or Neptune originally Voyager 2 was built as a backup for Voyager 1. its
trajectory was intentionally set to take longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn so that if Voyager
1 failed Voyager 2 could still take pictures of the gas giant planets this backup plan would have
cut off the possibility of the visit to Uranus and Saturn but it was a good plan to prevent
a loss on all fronts fortunately Voyager 1 did well so the backup plan was not carried out and
Voyager 2 went on to make history on Uranus and Neptune on its flyby Voyager 2 took incredible
pictures of Jupiter and two of its moons icy Moon Europa and the exceptionally small andrastea NASA
scientists were able to compare the pictures the probes took of Jupiter four months apart
the pictures of Jupiter captured by Voyager 2 showed changes in the Great Red Spot and also
showed higher resolution images of the giant planet in its moons even discovering no change
in elevation anywhere on europa's Surface in 1981 Voyager 2 became the third man-made object
to reach Saturn taking hundreds of pictures of the planet Planet it's moons and its many rings
five years later the spacecraft made its closest contact with ice giant Uranus and
made several observations about the planet that still puzzled scientists from images captured by
the probe scientists observed 10 new moons two rings around the planet and an atmosphere made
up of 85 percent hydrogen and 15 helium the probe also revealed that the planet's South
Pole was directed toward the sun and a magnetic field that was 55 degrees off Uranus axis Voyager
2 also imaged Miranda the smallest and closest moon to the planet in August of 1989 the probe
made history again and became the first man-made object to reach Neptune taking pictures from just
under 3000 miles above the planet's atmosphere the probe discovered five new moons four rings and a
Great Dark Spot in November 2018 NASA announced that void Roger II had crossed the edge of our
solar system and had reached Interstellar Space six years after its twin Voyager 1.
it's now traveled over 19.5 billion kilometers from Earth and is traveling at speeds of over 35
000 miles per hour according to NASA the plutonium-powered spacecraft have enough fuel to
remain in operation until 2025 and until then the probes will continue to take pictures of events
Across the Universe Paving the way for future space exploration Suzanne dot project manager
for Voyager at Nasa said 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 Earth
for years scientists have considered extending the Voyager program by launching a third probe
however the plans haven't been actualized mainly because there won't be another solar system
alignment for another hundred years in 2021 however scientists at the European geoscience
Union general assembly proposed a new project which would include launching a spacecraft to
a point in space where none before it is reached this spacecraft called Interstellar probe or IP
is being built to reach the interstellar medium a point beyond the heliosphere up to 10 times
further than the Voyages have gone one of the goals of this mission is to capture the nature
of the cosmic bubble that surrounds the sun giving us an image of what our solar system
truly looks like the interstellar probe Mission which will last at least 50 years is expected to
discover new habitable worlds within and beyond our solar system this mission is scheduled to
be launched in the early 2030s and experts predict that it will take at least 15 years
for the spacecraft to exit the heliosphere giving 35 more years for the mission to cover more ground
in interstellar space than the Voyager probes the highlight of the Voyager program was the
exploration of Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune however there are still many more planets within
our solar system that are Uncharted Territory recently scientists discovered that they're a lot
more than eight planets within our solar system remember that Pluto has been relegated to dwarf
planet status however scientists estimate that there are hundreds or even thousands
of dwarf planets in our solar system Each of which have interesting qualities of their own
on its way to Interstellar space scientists are hopeful that the interstellar probe could float
past any of these geologically active dwarf planets and capture previously unknown space
moments if the Voyager program could make unprecedented discoveries to everybody's
amazement imagine the potential of a mission backed by over a half century of experience the
interstellar probe definitely holds promise as it's a more informed Mission and will be backed
up by the most advanced technology exciting times for the world of astronomy that's a
wrap on this video please like And subscribe as always and thank you for watching Factnomenal