Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth, has resumed sending science data after experiencing a computer problem in November. The four instruments on board are now back in operation, as reported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The team received significant information from Voyager 1 in April and recently instructed the spacecraft to resume studying its surroundings.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is currently moving through interstellar space, the region between star systems. Before entering this region, the spacecraft made discoveries such as a thin ring around Jupiter and multiple moons of Saturn. Its instruments are designed to gather data on plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles.
The twin spacecraft Voyager 2 is also in interstellar space and is more than 12 billion miles (19.31 billion kilometers) away from Earth. Both spacecraft are located over 15 billion miles (24.14 billion kilometers) from Earth while their launch date was September 5th, 1977 and they were launched together on a mission to explore our solar system.
This article was initially published on June 14th, 2024 and was updated on June 17th, 2024 to correct the metric distances of both Voyager spacecrafts from Earth.
