Still in contact with Earth, Voyager 1 is now almost 15 billion miles away. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
NASA is listening for any peep from Voyager 2 after shedding contact with the spacecraft billions of miles away.
Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar house, Voyager 2 has been out of contact ever since flight controllers by accident despatched a wrong command greater than every week in the past that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere 2%, however it was sufficient to chop communications.
Although it’s thought-about a protracted shot, NASA stated Monday that its large dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is looking out for any stray indicators from Voyager 2, at present greater than 12 billion miles distant. It takes greater than 18 hours for a sign to succeed in Earth from so distant.
In the approaching week, the Canberra antenna — a part of NASA’s Deep Space Network — additionally will bombard Voyager 2’s neighborhood with the right command, in hopes it hits its mark, based on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.
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Otherwise, NASA must wait till October for an automated spacecraft reset that ought to restore communication, based on officers.
Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to discover the outer planets, only a couple weeks forward of its equivalent twin, Voyager 1.
Still in contact with Earth, Voyager 1 is now almost 15 billion miles away, making it humanity’s most distant spacecraft.
