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NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched into space in 1977, just 16 days apart, with a designed operational lifetime of 5 years. The pair was tasked with studying Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their respective moons.
However, after nearly 46 years of operation, the two spacecraft have made history by venturing beyond the boundary of the Sun’s influence. They continue to send data from the interstellar environment – the mysterious space between stars. Despite occasional brief interruptions, it seems that their cosmic journey will continue for a long time to come, as reported by Business Insider on August 4.
NASA designed the Voyager spacecraft duo to explore the outer regions of the Solar System. After completing their primary mission, they continued to explore, embarking on a grand journey across the Milky Way and capturing breathtaking cosmic vistas.
On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 captured the iconic image “Pale Blue Dot” from a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers. It remains the farthest photograph of Earth taken by any spacecraft. Over the past decade, Voyager 1 has explored the interstellar space region filled with gas, dust, and charged particles. Voyager 2 reached the interstellar space in 2018, 6 years after its “twin” counterpart. Their observations of interstellar gas revolutionized the understanding of this enigmatic cosmic region in the field of astronomy.
“It’s impressive that both spacecraft are still operational and performing well. They have had some minor glitches, but they’re running great and sending valuable data. They’re still talking to us,” shared Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Voyager 1, currently about 23.8 billion kilometers away from Earth, is passing through the dark void of interstellar space. It holds the record as the farthest artificial object from Earth. Due to their different trajectories, Voyager 2 is currently around 19.8 billion kilometers away from Earth.
In recent years, with energy conservation efforts in mind, engineers have deactivated some of the non-essential technical systems on the Voyager spacecraft, such as heaters for scientific instruments, in the hope of prolonging their operational life until 2030. After this, they may lose the ability to communicate with Earth.
However, even after NASA switches off the tools and concludes Voyager’s mission, the pair will continue their journey through interstellar space. NASA reveals that about 300 years from now, Voyager 1 will enter the Oort Cloud, a spherical region outside the orbit of Neptune containing billions of icy comets. It will take another 30,000 years to reach the outer edge of the cloud and about 40,000 years to reach AC+79 3888, a star in the Camelopardalis constellation.
Meanwhile, around 296,000 years from now, Voyager 2 will pass by Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. “The Voyager spacecraft are destined to wander the Milky Way forever, perhaps,” according to NASA.