After losing touch with Voyager 2 billion miles distant, NASA is now listening for any sounds from the spacecraft.
Since flight controllers issued a mistaken command tilting Voyager 2’s antenna away from Earth more than a week ago, the spacecraft has been hurtling increasingly deeper into interstellar space and is currently out of contact. A simple 2% movement in the antenna of the spacecraft was all that was needed to stop communications.
Voyager 2
Although it’s a long shot, NASA announced on Monday that Voyager 2, which is currently more than 12 billion miles away, is being monitored by its enormous dish antenna in Canberra, Australia. A signal traveling from that far away takes more than 18 hours to arrive on Earth.
According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees the Voyager missions, the Canberra antenna, which is a component of the Deep Space Network, will likewise blast Voyager 2’s vicinity with the proper command in the following week in the hopes that it hits its target.
- NASA seeks Voyager’s sounds after losing contact 2 billion miles.
- NASA monitors Voyager 2 from Canberra, Australia, requiring 18 hours for signal arrival.
- Voyager 1 remains in contact with Earth despite being 15 billion miles away.
Officials have stated that if a connection cannot be restored automatically, NASA will have to wait until October. Exactly two weeks before its identical twin, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to study the outer planets.
Voyager 1 is still in contact with Earth despite being over 15 billion miles away, making it the farthest distant spacecraft ever built by humans.
