It’s communicating with us from another dimension. It never made it outside our solar system
Communication with Voyager 2 temporarily lost (hopefully)
- Thread starter Owen Lucas
- Start date
It’s communicating with us from another dimension. It never made it outside our solar system
Each Voyager probe has 3 RTG’s which is essentially a nuclear battery powered by Plutonium 238. Combined they supplied about 470 watts of power at launch, power halves every ~88 years.
I didn't know this. I though it relied on normal batteries and solar panels.
However what's fascinating to me is that the signals it sends to us are only about 20W worth of power. That is an extremely weak signal. I'm surprised we can actually pick it up here on earth.
Right now Madrid is connected to Voyager 1, receiving at 1.0 x 10-22 kW. Or about a billionth of a billionth of a watt once it makes its way to Earth, with a round trip time of 1.85 DAYS and a bit rate of 160 b/sec. It’s incredible that we can still communicate with those probes reliably.
I read today that they received some signals from the craft. So I dont think it will be a lost cause by any means, though I do think a little unsettling ... they say worst case OCT ... pretty amazing for 1970's technology I would say!
NASA Hears "heartbeat"
NASA Hears "heartbeat"
Welcome to astrophysics.
10^-22 watt signals? Yep…radio astronomy has always been dealing with those kind of numbers.
A fly hitting a screen on a summer day generates more observed energy than the whole of radio astronomy any given year…
Is this the new sub?
You’re not serious, are you? Even if you’re scientifically, uh, challenged, there’s Google to help you out, or, perhaps, NASA.
The Voyager probes were launched over 45 years ago. They’re still working well past design life, and have reached truly interstellar space, beyond the heliopause. The first man made objects to do so.
They are a triumph of engineering and science. They’ve exceeded every design goal and are returning the first data from that far out.
Voyager
The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their over-40-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto.
MolaKule
Staff member
Apparently we're now communicating with it:
arstechnica.com
Voyager 2 phones home and says everything is cool
After sending the command, NASA had to wait 37 hours for a response.
arstechnica.com
