NASA Space-Probe: Voyager Deep-Knowledge

 

The Voyager Planetary Mission

Initially, the Voyagers were designed to conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn, including their rings and the larger moons of both planets. To achieve their two-planet mission, the spacecraft were built with a lifespan of five years.

 

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program, which aims to explore the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2, Voyager 1 has been operational for 45 years, 4 months, and 30 days as of February 5, 2023.

 

The spacecraft communicates with Earth through NASA's Deep Space Network, receiving routine commands and transmitting data. NASA and JPL provide real-time information on distance and velocity.

 

As of January 7, 2023, Voyager 1 is located at a distance of 159.40 AU (approximately 23.846 billion kilometers or 14.817 billion miles) from Earth, making it the most distant human-made object from our planet.

Voyager Has A Golden Record

In the upper left-hand corner, there is a clearly recognizable illustration of a phonograph record along with its stylus. The stylus is positioned correctly to play the record from the beginning. Surrounding the image, there is binary arithmetic representing the duration of one complete rotation of the record, which is 3.6 seconds. This time is expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, corresponding to the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom.

The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside edge towards the center. Below this drawing, there is a side view of the record and stylus, accompanied by a binary number that represents the duration for playing one side of the record, which is approximately one hour.

The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is a pulsar map that was previously sent as part of the plaques on the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions. This map indicates the location of our solar system in relation to 14 pulsars, each with its precise period indicated.

In the lower right-hand corner, there is a drawing of a hydrogen atom in its two lowest energy states. A connecting line along with the digit "1" shows that the time interval associated with the transition between these two states is to be used as the fundamental time scale for the time indicated on the cover and in the decoded images.

 

As of August 2022, Voyager 1 is approximately 14.6 billion miles (23.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth, making it the farthest spacecraft from our planet. Currently, the probe is traveling at a speed of about 523 million kilometers (325 million miles) per year, which means it covers about one light-year every 18,000 years.

Image Sources- NASA & JPL