NASA's "Voyager 1" probe is preparing to reach a colossal distance milestone
Kyiv • UNN
The NASA probe will reach a distance of 26 billion kilometers from Earth and will remain the most distant human-made object. The spacecraft has been operating in interstellar space since 2012.
Since its launch in 1977, NASA’s "Voyager 1" spacecraft has traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft. The probe, which left the confines of our Solar System many years ago and is now traveling through interstellar space, is approaching a significant milestone: it is covering the distance light travels in 24 hours—the so-called "light-day," reports UNN, citing Reuters.
A "light-day" is approximately 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers). According to the U.S. space agency, "Voyager 1," traveling through the vacuum of space at nearly 38,000 miles per hour (61,000 km/h), will reach this distance from Earth on Wednesday at 5:16 a.m. Eastern Time (10:16 GMT). The automated spacecraft is currently the most distant human-made object from Earth.
"I regard this as an engineering milestone that demonstrates Voyager 1’s astonishing longevity. In addition, it is a remarkable technical achievement—the ability to maintain communication with a spacecraft at such an enormous distance," said astrophysicist Alan Cummings, a senior research scientist at the California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Space Radiation Laboratory, who has worked on the Voyager program since 1973.
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Many people are probably more familiar with the concept of a "light-year," a unit of measurement used to describe vast distances in space. It is the distance that a particle of light (a photon) travels in one year—about 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). For example, the stars nearest to us beyond the Solar System—the three stars that make up the Alpha Centauri system—are located about 4.24 light-years away.
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"Voyager 1" and its "twin"—the "Voyager 2" spacecraft—were launched 49 years ago. They studied the planets of the outer Solar System before continuing farther into space. "Voyager 1" launched on September 5, 1977, aboard a Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida—16 days after the launch of "Voyager 2," but within a few months it had overtaken its "twin."
""Voyager 1" transmitted a huge amount of new information about Jupiter and Saturn, as well as their moons," Cummings said.
The spacecraft discovered a faint ring around Jupiter and two previously unknown moons of the planet—Thebe and Metis. It later also found five new moons of Saturn and a ring that was named the "G ring."
"After its launch in 1977, "Voyager 2" took a different route through the Solar System to visit Uranus and Neptune. It is expected that in nine years, in November 2035, "Voyager 2" will be one light-day from Earth," Cummings said.
In 2012, "Voyager 1" crossed the outer boundary of the heliosphere—the protective shell of charged particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun—and entered interstellar space, continuing to collect data.
"It was the first spacecraft to transmit information about the energy spectra of galactic cosmic rays (fast, energetic particles) in the low-energy range. These particles cannot be detected inside the heliosphere because they are repelled by the solar wind. This was a true "Holy Grail" for the physics of low-energy cosmic rays," explained Cummings, an expert in cosmic rays.
"Voyager 2" entered interstellar space in 2018.
Cummings joined the Voyager science team by chance: an experiment to study cosmic rays using a balloon—the basis of his doctoral dissertation at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)—did not land in northern Canada as planned.
"It circled the globe one and a half times and eventually ended up in the hands of the Soviet Union. It appears to have fallen without a parachute and was effectively destroyed," Cummings said.
"It was decided that the experiment was over, and shortly after development began on the subsystem for studying cosmic rays on Voyager (in 1973), I was offered a job there. Losing the balloon turned out to be fortunate for me, because the Voyager mission became the foundation of my entire career. I have been working on it and analyzing the data received for 53 years," Cummings noted.
He joined the Voyager team at the age of 29, and is now 82.
Both Voyager spacecraft carry a Golden Record—a medium intended to tell the story of Earth to any intelligent extraterrestrial beings that might encounter the spacecraft. The record is a 12-inch (30.5 cm) gold-plated copper disk containing a variety of images and sounds reflecting the culture of our planet.
These include musical works, in particular the song "Johnny B. Goode" by rock musician Chuck Berry, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, songs by Australian Aboriginal peoples, as well as spoken greetings in 55 languages and instructions on how to find Earth.
Later, some experts began questioning the wisdom of providing directions to the location of our planet, since the Golden Record could be found by hostile beings who might wish to seize Earth.
"Over the years, I have heard such concerns, but I have never personally worried about them. The likelihood of aliens finding it is extremely small," Cummings said.