NASA’s Voyager 1 probe, the most distant man-made object in the universe, has begun transmitting usable information back to ground control after months of sending gibberish. The US space agency announced this news on Monday. Despite stopping to send understandable data back to Earth on November 14, 2023, controllers were able to confirm that the spacecraft was still receiving their commands.
In March, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found a single malfunctioning chip responsible for the communication issues. They developed a clever coding fix that worked within the limitations of the probe’s 46-year-old computer system. Now, the agency reports that Voyager 1 is providing valuable data on its engineering systems and plans to resume sending scientific data soon.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 held the distinction of being the first spacecraft from Earth to enter the interstellar medium in 2012. Currently located more than 15 billion miles away from our planet, it takes approximately 22.5 hours for messages to reach the probe from Earth. Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, also exited the solar system in 2018.
Both Voyager probes carry “Golden Records,” which are 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks designed to explain Earth’s story to potential extraterrestrial beings. The records include a map of our solar system, a piece of uranium serving as a radioactive clock, and symbolic instructions to play the record. The content was selected by NASA with input from a committee led by renowned astronomer Carl Sagan and consists of encoded images, music, and sounds of life on Earth.
While their power banks are projected to be depleted around 2025, Voyager spacecraft will continue wandering through Milky Way potentially for eternity in silence