What is Voyager 1 doing right now?
Over the years, the mission team has turned off five other scientific instruments as well, leaving Voyager 1 with four that are still functioning — the Cosmic Ray Subsystem, the Low-Energy Charged Particles instrument, the Magnetometer and the Plasma Wave Subsystem.
Is Voyager 1 still active today?
Launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2, Voyager 1 has been operating for 44 years, 6 months and 29 days as of April 3, 2022 UTC [refresh], and still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth.
How far away is Voyager 1 2020?
Present Status. As of April 2020, Voyager 1 is at a distance of 22.3 billion kilometers (149.0 AU) from the Sun. Voyager 2 was at a distance of 18.5 billion kilometers (123.6 AU). Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 AU per year.
How far away is Voyager 1 in 2021?
14 1/2 billion miles
The most distant artificial object is the spacecraft Voyager 1, which – in November 2021 – is nearly 14 1/2 billion miles (23 billion km) from Earth. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune.
What planet is Voyager 1 closest to 2021?
Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter. Highlights of the encounter include the discoveries of the first active volcanoes spotted beyond Earth at the moon Io (discovered on March 9 in optical navigation images), the Jovian ring system and two moons (Thebe and Metis).
Where is the Voyager today?
Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech. On October 29, 2020, NASA re-established contact with its Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1977. The craft is now traveling more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion km) from Earth.
Will Voyager 1 come back to Earth?
Even if science data won’t likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth.
Can Voyager 1 still take pictures?
There will be no more pictures; engineers turned off the spacecraft’s cameras, to save memory, in 1990, after Voyager 1 snapped the famous image of Earth as a “pale blue dot” in the darkness. Out there in interstellar space, where Voyager 1 roams, there’s “nothing to take pictures of,” Dodd said.