NASA Voyager missions and its continuing journey

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What is Voyager’s mission?

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NASA’s Voyager 1 is still operational 45 years after its launch and is now traveling beyond our Solar System. However, the veteran spacecraft is now sending back strange data that is perplexing its engineers. A glitch is said to be behind this. Preliminary analysis suggests that the craft is confused about its location in space. 

What is Voyager’s mission? 

  • It was launched in 1977.
  • Voyager 2 departed in August, and a few days later, Voyager 1 in September 1977.
  • It was only meant to explore the outer planets, but they just kept ongoing. 
  • It left our solar system in 2013. 
  • Both Voyager spacecraft are rapidly accelerating away from Earth and into interstellar space.
  • The planetary encounters ended in 1989 when Voyager 1 and 2 were declared part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission.
  • Voyager 1, which took a more direct path through the Solar System, entered interstellar space in 2012, followed by Voyager 2 in 2018.
  • For the past few years, the two spacecraft have been beaming back our first glimpses from this strange region we call interstellar space. 
  • They have become the first man-made objects to leave our Solar System.

Accomplishments so far 

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited all four gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). It discovered 16 moons and phenomena like Neptune’s mysteriously transient Great Dark Spot, the cracks in Europa’s ice shell, and ring features on every planet.

What is Interstellar space? 

Our Sun controls the conditions around our solar system, but outside of that is interstellar space and all that it contains. The heliopause is the point at which the Sun’s constant flow of material and magnetic field stop affecting its surroundings. It indicates the end of the heliosphere, a region created by our Sun.

What is Heliosphere?

The heliosphere is a bubble formed around the Sun by the outward flow of solar wind and the opposing inward flow of interstellar wind. The heliosphere is the region influenced by the Sun’s dynamic properties. By keeping the interstellar medium at bay, the solar wind also keeps out life-threatening bombardment of radiation and deadly high-energy particles – such as cosmic rays – from deep space. 

Source: Sciencealert