The 46-year-old spacecraft, which flew close to Jupiter and Saturn in its youth and inspired Earthlings' image of the planet as a “pale dot,” has not been transmitting usable data from interstellar space in recent months. I haven't. From the report: When Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, scientists hoped it would fulfill its original purpose and capture up-close images of Jupiter and Saturn. It was more than that. Voyager 1 discovered active volcanoes, moons, and planetary rings, and in the process squeezed Earth and all of humanity into her single pixel in the picture, a “pale blue dot” as astronomer Carl Sagan called it. We have proven that it can be done. It extended his four-year mission to the present and embarked on the deepest journey into space ever. Now, it may have said its final farewell to that distant point.
Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object in the universe, has not sent coherent data to Earth since November. NASA is trying to diagnose what Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd called “the most serious problem” the robotic spacecraft has faced since she took the job in 2010. The spacecraft experienced a problem with one of its computers, which was resolved. The ability to transmit engineering and scientific data to Earth. The loss of Voyager 1 marks the beginning of the end for a mission that ended decades of scientific progress, gave shape to humanity's farthest ambitions, and inspired generations to look to the skies. I will tell you.
