Tag: Voyager
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Voyager 1 probe fires long-dormant thrusters in interstellar space
Artist’s concept of the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has fired a set of four control thrusters for the first time in 37 years, giving the long-lived probe a new way to point itself on its cruise into interstellar space 13 billion miles from Earth. The backup rocket jets were originally…
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NASA turns to Voyager’s dormant thrusters for first time in 37 years – and they work!
An artist’s conception shows the Voyager spacecraft pointing its antenna back toward Earth. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Imagine you had a car sitting in storage since 1980, and suddenly you needed to start it up. Now imagine that it revs up like a charm as soon as you turn the key. That’s the scenario NASA…
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Voyager at 40: ‘The Search for Life in Space’ puts big question on the big screen
“The Search for Life In Space” touches on several frontiers in astrobiology. (MacGillivray Freeman) What better way to celebrate 40 years of NASA’s interplanetary Voyager mission than with an eye-filling movie that brings the decades-old story up to date? “The Search for Life in Space,” an IMAX 3-D documentary that opens at the Pacific Science…
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Into the unknown: Voyager 1 begins interstellar space adventure
The hotly contested question has been answered: Voyager 1 is humanity’s first object to enter interstellar space. The historic announcement came from NASA after a year of review into 2012 and 2013 data points from the intrepid probe. Officially, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space on 25 August 2012. Voyager 1: For over a year, scientists…
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Year in review (Part II) – Through the solar system and beyond
For NASA’s unmanned explorers, 2012 was an astonishing year filled with discoveries and observations inside our solar system, at the outer reaches of our solar system, and in the star systems beyond our own. Leading these discoveries were the NASA probes MESSENGER, GRAIL, Cassini, Voyager I, and the Kepler Space Telescope. MESSENGER at Mercury –…
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Voyager 1’s great escape: The search for interstellar space
Like its sister probe Voyager 2, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been an instrumental force in our continued push to gain a better understanding of our solar system. From its encounters with Jupiter and Saturn, to its ongoing mission to explore the outer boundaries of the solar system, Voyager 1 stands as the farthest man-made…
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Thirty-four years after launch, Voyager 2 continues to explore
On August 20, 1977, the intrepid spacecraft Voyager 2 launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL on what was supposed to be only a four year mission to Jupiter and Saturn. But exactly 34 years later, Voyager 2 has cemented itself into the upper echelons of unmanned space exploration, continuing to beam back…
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The Voyagers: An unprecedented on-going mission of exploration
The Voyager spacecraft – NASA’s longest operational interplanetary probes – are about to enter their 34th year of operation, as they continue their sail out of the confines of our solar system toward the ever-present void of interstellar space. And as controllers on Earth manage the gradual and progressive power-down of the two spacecraft, the Voyagers…