Pale Blue Dot at 30: Voyager 1's iconic photo of Earth from space reveals our place in the universe

The photo shows Earth as it truly is — a lonely outpost of life in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos.

NASA released this updated version of Voyager 1's famous "Pale Blue Dot" image of Earth on Feb. 13, 2020. The original was taken 30 years earlier, on Feb. 14, 1990.

Thirty years ago today, humanity got a chance to see itself in a whole new light. 

On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 probe snapped a photo of Earth from 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away. The image shows our home planet as it truly is — a tiny, lonely outpost of life in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos — and became iconic as a result. 

The Voyager 1 team sensed at the time that the " Pale Blue Dot ," as the photo has come to be known, would be an important social document, said planetary scientist Candy Hansen, who served as the experiment representative for the Voyager imaging team and was the first person to set eyes on the Pale Blue Dot photo when it came down to Earth.

Related: Voyager at 40: 40 photos from NASA's epic 'Grand Tour' mission

The Cold War had not yet thawed completely in early 1990. The Pale Blue Dot had the potential to remind folks around the world that we're all in this together, no matter how many nuclear warheads one superpower may be aiming at another, Hansen explained. And the image remains vital today, because its message is timeless, she added.

"Now, we have climate change as an existential threat," Hansen, who now works for the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute, told Space.com. "And we need to remind ourselves again that there's one planet that is hospitable to humans. Even if we colonize the moon or Mars one day, neither one of those bodies is really going to be able to support seven billion of us. So, we need to take care of this planet."

A family portrait

Voyager 1 launched a few weeks after its twin, Voyager 2 , back in 1977. Together, the two probes conducted an unprecedented "grand tour" of the solar system's giant planets, flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 

The tour was over after the Neptune encounter, which Voyager 2 executed in August 1989. But the two spacecraft kept on flying, out toward the great unknown of interstellar space. Mission team members decided to turn off the two probes' cameras to save precious power during the long journey (and because they probably wouldn't have many chances to photograph interesting things out beyond Neptune anyway).

But Voyager 1 turned around to take one last look at home before closing its eyes. And not just its home planet — its home system. The probe took a "family portrait" series of 60 photos, capturing the sun, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in addition to Earth. (Mercury was too close to the sun to be imaged, and sunlight bouncing around in the camera blocked Mars out.)

The Pale Blue Dot was the brainchild of famed astronomer, science communicator and Voyager imaging team member Carl Sagan , who first proposed snapping Earth with Voyager cameras in 1981 . And Sagan helped popularize the image and its message after the fact, writing a book called "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" (Random House, 1994). 

Earth was one of the last things Voyager 1 saw. The probe took the Pale Blue Dot photo at 0448 GMT on Feb. 14, 1990, just 34 minutes before its cameras were shut off forever. (The very last photos Voyager 1 took, however, were of the sun, Hansen said.)

All of the image data didn't come down to Earth until May 1, 1990, NASA officials wrote in a Pale Blue Dot explainer . Hansen couldn't wait to see our planet through Voyager 1's eyes — and, when she finally got the chance, doing so proved a bit more difficult than she had expected.

"It was actually kind of terrifying, because I didn't see it at first," she said. "Because of that beam of scattered light, it didn't pop out at me immediately. And then I was so afraid that we had missed it, or screwed up the exposure or something. So, it was such a relief when I spotted it."

That beam of scattered light may have briefly stopped Hansen's heart, but it adds a certain poetic flair to the Pale Blue Dot photo. It's almost as if the cosmos threw a spotlight onto our precious little world for a moment, to help us make it out in the abyss.

Related: Earth quiz: Do you really know your planet?

Still exploring

Both Voyagers kept flying long after February 1990. They cruised through the outer solar system and eventually popped free of the sun's sphere of influence into interstellar space.

Voyager 1 accomplished this unprecedented feat in 2012 , and its twin followed suit six years later. And both probes are still going strong. They should have enough power left to continue gathering data about their exotic surroundings through 2024 or so, mission team members have said.

The Voyager program has accomplished amazing things, shedding considerable light on the giant planets and the dark realms far beyond them. (Voyager 2, for example, is still the only spacecraft ever to get up-close looks at Uranus or Neptune.) And the Pale Blue Dot is a unique part of this diverse and layered legacy.

"The Earth picture reaches to our hearts, I would say, and all the rest goes in our heads," Hansen said.

  • Photos from NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 probes  
  • Voyager 1's historic flyby of Jupiter in photos  
  • Voyager 1 spacecraft's road to interstellar space: A photo timeline

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate ), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook . 

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Mike Wall

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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‘Pale Blue Dot’ Revisited – Iconic View of Earth From 3.7 Billion Miles Away Updated

By Jet Propulsion Laboratory February 15, 2020

Pale Blue Dot

This updated version of the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft uses modern image-processing software and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view while attempting to respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A recent update to this historic portrait shows Earth as a tiny speck surrounded by the vastness of space.

For the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic views from the Voyager mission, NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is publishing a new version of the image known as the “Pale Blue Dot.” (See above.)

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken February 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan’s book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” in which he wrote: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.”

Voyager 1 Perspective for Family Portrait

This simulated view, made using NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app, approximates Voyager 1’s perspective when it took its final series of images known as the “Family Portrait of the Solar System,” including the “Pale Blue Dot” image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The updated image uses modern image-processing software and techniques while respecting the intent of those who planned the image. Like the original, the new color view shows Planet Earth as a single, bright blue pixel in the vastness of space. Rays of sunlight scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene, one of which happens to have intersected dramatically with Earth.

Voyager 1 Perspective Simulated

This simulated view image adds the location of Voyager 1 when each image was taken. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The view was obtained on February 14, 1990, just minutes before Voyager 1’s cameras were intentionally powered off to conserve power and because the probe — along with its sibling, Voyager 2 — would not make close flybys of any other objects during their lifetimes. Shutting down instruments and other systems on the two Voyager spacecraft has been a gradual and ongoing process that has helped enable their longevity.

This celebrated Voyager 1 view was part of a series of 60 images designed to produce what the mission called the “Family Portrait of the Solar System.” Voyager 1 was speeding out of the solar system — beyond Neptune and about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun — when mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time. This sequence of camera-pointing commands returned images of six of the solar system’s planets, as well as the Sun. The Pale Blue Dot view was created using the color images Voyager took of Earth.

Original Pale Blue Dot

The original “Pale Blue Dot.” This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed “Pale Blue Dot,” is a part of the first ever “portrait” of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager’s great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters — violet, blue and green — and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification. Credit: NASA/JPL

The popular name of this view is traced to the title of the 1994 book by Voyager imaging scientist Carl Sagan, who originated the idea of using Voyager’s cameras to image the distant Earth and played a critical role in enabling the family portrait images to be taken.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL , which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

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Iconic ‘pale blue dot’ photo – Carl Sagan’s idea – turns 30

By blaine friedlander.

In the pantheon of famous self-portraits, this one is less than a pixel – and it is us.

The iconic photograph of planet Earth from distant space – the “pale blue dot” – was taken 30 years ago – Feb. 14, 1990, at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, by the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 as it zipped toward the far edge of the solar system. The late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan came up with the idea for the snapshot, and coined the phrase.

“The Pale Blue Dot image shows our world as both breathtakingly beautiful and fragile, urging us to take care of our home,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell’s  Carl Sagan Institute .

“We are living in an amazing time,” she said, “where for the first time ever we have the technical means to spot worlds orbiting other stars. Could one of them be another pale blue dot, harboring life? That is what we are trying to find out at the Carl Sagan Institute.”

Pale Blue Dot

The iconic “pale blue dot” photograph of planet Earth, which was taken Feb. 14, 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, from a distance of 3.7 billion miles. Now 30 years later, Voyager 1 is nearly 14 billion miles away.

NASA’s Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, to explore the solar system and beyond. The spacecraft flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and by Saturn on Nov. 12, 1980. A decade later, it was time for a solar system family portrait.

Sagan, part of Voyager’s imaging team, is credited with the idea of having Voyager 1 take images of Earth and its sibling planets. Sagan knew the picture would render Earth as just a dot of light, but as stated on the NASA website, the Voyager team “wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean.”

On Feb. 13, 1990, NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers sent commands to Voyager 1 to face Earth in order to get the photo. A day later, three Earth-as-a-dot images were taken – then NASA shut down Voyager 1’s camera permanently, to conserve energy for the rest of its decadeslong mission.

Downloading the images took several weeks: The final download occurred May 1, 1990, via NASA’s Deep Space Network.

As of Feb. 14, the elapsed mission time for the Voyager 1 spacecraft is 42 years, five months and 10 days. The craft is about 13.8 billion miles from Earth and traveling at 38,000 miles per hour. NASA and the JPL still keeps tabs on it; the next check will be Feb. 16.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

In addition to conceptualizing the famed photo, Sagan was one of the creators of the  Golden Record  – a 12-inch, gold-covered copper disc, carrying an interstellar message – aboard Voyager 1 and the spacecraft’s sibling, Voyager 2. Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and a Peabody and Emmy award-winning writer and producer, served as creative director of Voyager’s Interstellar Message.

In their 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” Druyan and Sagan took a poetic and holistic view of Earth – as a tiny speck, a pixel – in the famed photo.

“Look again at that dot,” they wrote. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”

30 years ago, Carl Sagan requested the Voyager 1 spacecraft take one last picture of Earth. This is the legacy of the Pale Blue Dot.

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This Day In History : February 14

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“Pale Blue Dot” photo of Earth is taken

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

On Valentine's Day, 1990, 3.7 billion miles away from the sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft takes a photograph of Earth. The picture, known as Pale Blue Dot , depicts our planet as a nearly indiscernible speck roughly the size of a pixel.

Launched on September 5, 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were charged with exploring the outer reaches of our solar system. It passed by Jupiter in March of 1979 and Saturn the following year. The gaps between the outer planets are so vast that it was another decade before it passed by Neptune and arrived at the spot where it was to take a series of images of the planets, known as the "Family Portrait" of our solar system.

Of the Family Portrait series, Pale Blue Dot was certainly the most memorable. The furthest image ever taken of Earth, it lent its name to popular astronomer Carl Sagan's 1994 book. Sagan, who advised the Voyager mission and had suggested the photo, wrote the following: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Voyager 1's journey continues. In 1998, it became the most distant human-made object in space, and on August 25, 2012, it left the furthest reaches of the sun's magnetic field and solar winds, becoming the first man-made object in interstellar space. 

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NASA's iconic 'Pale Blue Dot' photograph turns 30 on Friday. It shows Earth in the void of space from nearly 4 billion miles away.

  • Friday marks the 30th anniversary of the iconic " Pale Blue Dot " photograph, which shows Earth as a speck from a vantage point 3.7 billion miles away from our sun.
  • The image was taken by NASA's Voyager 1 probe, which launched in 1977 and entered interstellar space in 2012.
  • NASA has released an updated version of the image that shows Earth as a bluer, clearer dot.
  • The original image was part of a 1990 series that captured "family portraits" of planets in our solar system.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

Insider Today

On February 14, 1990, a distant spacecraft nearly 4 billion miles from Earth snapped a now iconic portrait known as the "Pale Blue Dot."

In the image, Earth is smaller than a pixel, almost hidden amid a wide swath of hazy sunlight. The photo came from the Voyager 1 probe, which launched in 1977 along with its twin, Voyager 2. Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 visited all four of the solar system's gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

The "Pale Blue Dot" picture showed everyone on Earth just how small and fragile our world is from a perspective never seen before. The image and its title were the brainchildren of the planetary scientist Carl Sagan , who was a member of the Voyager Imaging team.

"There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world," Sagan wrote in his book, appropriately titled "The Pale Blue Dot." "To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

On the 30th anniversary of the image, NASA has given it a makeover with modern technology "while respecting the intent of those who planned the image," the space agency said in a statement. The new image can be seen above.

The original image (below), while awe-inspiring and unprecedented , was also blurry and interrupted by light streaks. To take the photo, Voyager 1 had to be pointed toward the sun, so the grainy wave over the speck that is Earth is a scattered beam of light.

The original photo is a compilation of images and used three color filters to balance the chromatic milieu. The updated image also uses color filters but balances them in regard to each other to make the composite less hazy. In addition, the color of the sunray is adjusted to look white, similar to how our eyes perceive sunlight.

Exploring the giant planets of our solar system

The Voyager mission took advantage of a rare alignment of the solar system's planets in the 1970s and '80s, which occurs only every 175 years. The planets' locations in their respective orbits allowed the twin spacecraft to use each planet's gravity to increase their speeds so that they didn't need as much built-in propulsion.

Taking a photograph of our home planet and solar system from beyond Neptune wasn't in the original mission plan. But right before mission commanders powered off Voyager 1's camera, they had the probe turn around to face Earth one final time and snap some pictures.

Because the probe was pointed back toward the sun, it saw a scattering of light rays, which is responsible for the spectrum of haze around Earth. In the resulting image, our home planet is just 0.12 pixels in size.

Just 34 minutes after the photo was taken, Voyager 1 turned off its cameras forever.

Sagan persuaded the Voyager team to use the spacecraft to take images of Earth, even though he knew the distance meant there was a possibility nothing would show up. That's why he wanted the photos — to capture the Earth's smallness and vulnerability in the cosmos.

'A family portrait' of our solar system

Voyager 1 also took 59 other photographs of the planets in the solar system, a series that was used to create a distant "family portrait."

Like Earth, the other planets photographed appear as specks as well. 

Voyager 1 photographed Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus. But Mars was hidden by sunlight, Mercury was too close to the sun to appear, and the dwarf planet Pluto was too small, distant, and dark.

The Voyager's family-portrait series was the first and only time a single spacecraft has attempted to photograph our entire solar system.

In August 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space . It's now the most distant human-made object in the universe.

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

Watch: 8 weird robots NASA wants to send to space

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

  • Main content

NASA remasters Voyager 1's famous 'Pale Blue Dot' image

We're small, but glorious.

amandakooser.jpg

NASA took a fresh look at Voyager 1's 1990 "Pale Blue Dot" image showing Earth as a tiny speck in space.

palebluedot

NASA took a fresh look at Voyager 1's 1990 "Pale Blue Dot" image showing Earth as a tiny speck in space.

Earth occupies a tiny speck of space in a wide, wild universe. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft gifted us with a mind-altering perspective on our planet back on Feb. 14, 1990, when it snapped a distant picture of home .

The haunting view shows Earth as a tiny spot with sun rays dashing across the frame. The spacecraft, which launched in 1977, was 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the sun at the time.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the image, NASA revisited the picture that became known as the "Pale Blue Dot." "The updated image uses modern image-processing software and techniques while respecting the intent of those who planned the image," said NASA on Wednesday .

Voyagers continue

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NASA turned off Voyager 1's camera system to save power shortly after snapping a series of images called the "Family Portrait of the Solar System." All these years later, Voyager is still exploring the universe. It crossed over into interstellar space in 2012 .

The "Pale Blue Dot" moniker came from astronomer Carl Sagan and his 1994 book of the same name. "That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives," Sagan wrote.

That's worth a few moments of reflection all these years later.

This is Cassini's last full mosaic view of Saturn. 

Don't cry for Opportunity, Spirit, Messenger, Cassini or Rosetta. Their final images may feel heartbreaking, but they're testaments to ingenuity, daring and perseverance. These spacecraft and rovers led fascinating lives and enriched our understanding of the universe.   

NASA expects this InSight selfie from April 24, 2022 to be the lander's last. With dust coating its solar panels, the Mars emissary is entering its final days. NASA turned off instruments to save power and to prioritize the work of the marsquake-finding seismometer. InSight had a good run after landing in 2018 and discovering new information about the interior of Mars.

Before we get to the final image snapped by NASA's asteroid-smacking DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, it's worth it to linger on its penultimate image. DART, a planetary defense mission, smashed into the moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022 in an effort to nudge the moonlet's orbit around larger asteroid Didymos. 

DART's camera captured the view as it plunged to its doom. This was its last complete image. Stay tuned for its true final view.

DART's truly final image before it struck the surface of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos was this truncated view of the rocky surface. This look came from roughly 4 miles (6 kilometers) away and a mere second before impact. The spacecraft only sent back a partial picture. The DART mission was a success as the spacecraft's sacrifice made a notable change in the moonlet's orbit. The same concept might one day be applied to an asteroid that threatens Earth.

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Voyager 1’s famous look back at Earth – a ‘pale blue dot’ – 30 years later

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

On 14 February 1990, just 34 minutes before Voyager 1’s cameras were powered down forever in an effort to conserve power, the spacecraft captured an image of Earth some 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) away. The snapshot was part of a “family portrait” of the solar system, a farewell set of 60 images showing Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, Venus and the Sun, a whimsical project inspired by the late planetary scientist Carl Sagan, a member of the Voyager imaging team.

The image of Earth, unresolved and less than a single pixel across, became known as the “Pale Blue Dot,” the title of a book by Sagan and a phrase he used to describe humanity’s home in the vastness of space. The tiny dot of light is seen “suspended in a sunbeam,” Sagan wrote, referring to an internal reflection in Voyager 1’s camera system.

For the 30th anniversary of the iconic image, modern photo-processing techniques were employed “while respecting the intent of those who planned the image,” according to a Jet Propulsion Laboratory statement. Sagan’s description of the scene remains an equally iconic homage to humanity’s home.

“Look again at that dot,” he wrote. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisation, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

Sagan noted that “Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.”

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience,” he concluded. “There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

The full text of the passage is available from the Planetary Society.

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Carl Sagan’s highly inspirational 1980 TV series “ Cosmos: A Personal Voyage ” launched many a career in astronomy. Now the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond — a research institution devoted to the pursuit of Sagan’s challenge to explore other worlds, to learn if they, too, contain life — was unveiled at Cornell University on May 9th.

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Citizen-funded CubeSat ready to go solar sailing

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Stanford astronomers observe the birth of an alien planet

Stanford University researchers announce evidence of an exoplanet being born that could move us one step closer to understanding the process of planet formation around other stars. The alien planet, called LkCa 15 b, orbits a star 450 light-years away and appears to be on its way to growing into a world similar to Jupiter.

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Space Photos of the Week: An Eternal Voyage of Discovery

In 1977, two spacecraft launched to the edges of the solar system. Their mission was to explore the outer planets and send information to the team back on Earth. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 each had different trajectories planned, which meant they would each see different things along their journeys. Voyager 1’s mission was to fly by Jupiter and Saturn. While there, it discovered new moons, even ones covered in volcanoes (we see you Io). Voyager 2 had a bit more to do; not only would it also visit Jupiter and Saturn, it would become the first spacecraft to fly by Uranus and Neptune. In 2012 Voyager 1 left the heliopause—the region of space where the wind from our sun stops having influence on the environment, aka the entry into interstellar space. And recently, like all siblings trying to keep up, Voyager 2 left it too.

Currently both spacecraft are headed in different directions in relation to our sun. If you think of the plane of our solar system as a flat piece of paper, Voyager 1 headed slightly north while Voyager 2 headed south. Part of the reason for this decision was trying to understand the shape of our solar system and to understand exactly where the heliopause might be in either direction. After traveling for over 40 years, Voyager 1 is now almost 14 billion miles from Earth, while Voyager 2 is nearly 12 billion miles from Earth. They are headed in the direction of other star systems, but even traveling at nearly 40,000 miles per hour, it will take Voyager 1 more than 200,000 years to reach the nearest star. Believe it or not, both spacecraft phone into Earth almost every day to send back data from the depths of deep space. In honor of these intrepid explorers, we are going to travel along with both missions this week to gaze upon the outer planets, and then take a look back at Earth as well.

Grab your space suit, we’re headed out to the farthest reaches of our solar system.

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Galleries of Images Voyager Took

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune before starting their journey toward interstellar space. Here you'll find some of those iconic images, including "The Pale Blue Dot" - famously described by Carl Sagan - and what are still the only up-close images of Uranus and Neptune.

Jupiters Great Spot

Photography of Jupiter began in January 1979, when images of the brightly banded planet already exceeded the best taken from Earth. Voyager 1 completed its Jupiter encounter in early April, after taking almost 19,000 pictures and many other scientific measurements. Voyager 2 picked up the baton in late April and its encounter continued into August. They took more than 33,000 pictures of Jupiter and its five major satellites.

Image of Saturn

The Voyager 1 and 2 Saturn encounters occurred nine months apart, in November 1980 and August 1981. Voyager 1 is leaving the solar system. Voyager 2 completed its encounter with Uranus in January 1986 and with Neptune in August 1989, and is now also en route out of the solar system.

Image of Uranus

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew closely past distant Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, in January. At its closet, the spacecraft came within 81,800 kilometers (50,600 miles) of Uranus's cloudtops on Jan. 24, 1986. Voyager 2 radioed thousands of images and voluminous amounts of other scientific data on the planet, its moons, rings, atmosphere, interior and the magnetic environment surrounding Uranus.

Image of Neptune

In the summer of 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe the planet Neptune, its final planetary target. Passing about 4,950 kilometers (3,000 miles) above Neptune's north pole, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to any planet since leaving Earth 12 years ago. Five hours later, Voyager 2 passed about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from Neptune's largest moon, Triton, the last solid body the spacecraft will have an opportunity to study.

Image of Neptune

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.

Iconic ‘pale blue dot’ photo – Carl Sagan’s idea – turns 30

By | Blaine Friedlander , Cornell Chronicle

In the pantheon of famous self-portraits, this one is less than a pixel – and it is us.

The iconic photograph of planet Earth from distant space – the “pale blue dot” – was taken 30 years ago – Feb. 14, 1990, at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, by the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 as it zipped toward the far edge of the solar system. The late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan came up with the idea for the snapshot, and coined the phrase.

“The Pale Blue Dot image shows our world as both breathtakingly beautiful and fragile, urging us to take care of our home,” said Lisa Kaltenegger , associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute.

“We are living in an amazing time,” she said, “where for the first time ever we have the technical means to spot worlds orbiting other stars. Could one of them be another pale blue dot, harboring life? That is what we are trying to find out at the Carl Sagan Institute.”

NASA’s Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, to explore the solar system and beyond. The spacecraft flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and by Saturn on Nov. 12, 1980. A decade later, it was time for a solar system family portrait. Sagan, part of Voyager’s imaging team, is credited with the idea of having Voyager 1 take images of Earth and its sibling planets. Sagan knew the picture would render Earth as just a dot of light, but as stated on the NASA website, the Voyager team “wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean.”

On Feb. 13, 1990, NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers sent commands to Voyager 1 to face Earth in order to get the photo. A day later, three Earth-as-a-dot images were taken – then NASA shut down Voyager 1’s camera permanently, to conserve energy for the rest of its decadeslong mission.

Downloading the images took several weeks: The final download occurred May 1, 1990, via NASA’s Deep Space Network.

As of Feb. 14, the elapsed mission time for the Voyager 1 spacecraft is 42 years, five months and 10 days. The craft is about 13.8 billion miles from Earth and traveling at 38,000 miles per hour. NASA and the JPL still keeps tabs on it; the next check will be Feb. 16.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. —Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

In addition to conceptualizing the famed photo, Sagan was one of the creators of the Golden Record – a 12-inch, gold-covered copper disc, carrying an interstellar message – aboard Voyager 1 and the spacecraft’s sibling, Voyager 2. Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and a Peabody and Emmy award-winning writer and producer, served as creative director of Voyager’s Interstellar Message.

In their 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” Druyan and Sagan took a poetic and holistic view of Earth – as a tiny speck, a pixel – in the famed photo.

“Look again at that dot,” they wrote. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”

Read this article in the Cornell Chronicle.

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First-Ever Solar System Family Portrait (1990)

Series of images show planets as tiny specks of light.

The Solar System "family portrait" is the final series of 60 images captured by NASA's Voyager 1 that show six of our solar system's planets. It remains the first and only time — so far — a spacecraft has attempted to photograph our home solar system. Only three spacecraft have been capable of making such an observation from such a distance: Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.

Series of images showing the planets as small dots.

The Family Portrait

In February 1990, Voyager 1 was speeding out of the solar system — beyond Neptune and about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun — when mission managers commanded it to look back toward home for a final time. It snapped a series of 60 images that were used to create the first “family portrait” of our solar system.

The image series contatains the famous image that would become known as the Pale Blue Dot, revealing Earth was a tiny dot within a scattered ray of sunlight. Voyager 1 was so far away that — from its vantage point — Earth was a crescent about a pixel.

In addition to Earth, Voyager 1 captured images of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus. Mars was obscured by scattered sunlight bouncing around in the camera and Mercury was too close to the Sun, and dwarf planet Pluto was too tiny, too far away and too dark to be detected.

The images gave humans an awe-inspiring and unprecedented view of their home world and its neighbors. Like Earth, each planet appears as just a speck of light (Uranus and Neptune appear elongated due to spacecraft motion during their 15-second camera exposures).

"The family portrait is a symbol what NASA exploration is really about: Seeing our world in a new and bigger way," Dr. Thomas H. Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in 2018.

The family portrait remains the first and only time a spacecraft has attempted to photograph our home solar system. Only three spacecraft have been capable of making such an observation from such a distance: Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.

About the Photographer

Voyager 1 was launched Sept. 5, 1977, just days after its twin — Voyager 2 — on Aug. 20. Because it was on a faster route to the mission's first encounter, at Jupiter, Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977. (This was the reason for the order of their naming.)

Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on Nov. 12, 1980.

After snapping the Pale Blue Dot and other “family photos,” — at 05:22 GMT, Feb. 14, 1990 — Voyager 1 powered off its cameras forever. Mission planners wanted to save its energy for the long journey ahead.

In August 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space . It’s now the most distant human-made object ever.

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Rae Paoletta • Mar 03, 2022

The best space pictures from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions

Launched in 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 missions provided an unprecedented glimpse into the outer solar system — a liminal space once left largely to the imagination. The spacecraft provided views of worlds we’d never seen before, and in some cases, haven’t seen much of since.

The Voyager probes were launched about two weeks apart and had different trajectories, like two tour guides at the same museum. Only Voyager 2 visited the ice giants — Uranus and Neptune — for example.

The Voyagers hold a unique position in the pantheon of space history because they’re still making it; even right now, Voyagers 1 and 2 are the only functioning spacecraft in interstellar space. Both hold a Golden Record that contains sights and sounds of Earth in case alien life were to find one of the spacecraft.

As the Voyager missions voyage on, it’s good to look back at how they captured our solar system before leaving it.

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Voyager 1 to Take Pictures of Solar System Planets

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its mission along with Voyager 2 to explore the outer planets, will use its cameras February 13-14 to take an unprecedented family portrait of most of the planets in our solar system.

The collection of images will be from a unique point-of-view -- looking down on the solar system from a position 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane in which the planets orbit the Sun. No other spacecraft has ever been in a position to attempt a similar series of photos of most of the planets.

Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth. The Voyager spacecraft are controlled by and their data received at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"This is not just the first time, but perhaps the only time for decades that we'll be able to take a picture of the planets from outside the solar system," said Voyager Project Scientist Dr. Edward C. Stone of Caltech. No future space missions are planned that would fly a spacecraft so high above the ecliptic plane of the solar system, he said.

Starting shortly after 5 p.m. (PST) on Feb. 13 and continuing over the course of four hours, Voyager 1 will point its wide- and narrow-angle cameras at Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth and Venus. Mercury is too close to the Sun to be photographed by Voyager's cameras, and Pluto is too far away and too small to show up in images taken by the spacecraft. Beginning with the dimmest of the targets - Neptune -- and working toward the Sun, Voyager 1 will shutter about 64 images of the planets and the space between them.

The constellation Eridanus (The River), stretching behind the planets from Voyager 1's perspective, will provide the backdrop for the images.

Due to the schedules of several spacecraft being tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), the images will be recorded on board Voyager 1 and played back to DSN receivers on Earth in late March. The Voyager imaging team estimates that processing the images to reveal as much detail as possible will take several weeks. Most of the planets will appear as relatively small dots (about one to four pixels, or picture elements, in the 800-by-800 pixel frame of one Voyager image).

The enormous scale of the subject matter makes it unlikely that the entire set of images can be mosaicked to produce for publication a single photograph showing all the planets. Even an image covering the planets out to Jupiter would easily fill a poster-sized photographic print. At the least, imaging team hopes to assemble a mosaicked image composed of the frames showing Earth, Venus and perhaps Mars together.

Voyager 1, rather than Voyager 2, received the solar system photo assignment largely because of Voyager 1's improved viewpoint of the planets.

Voyager 1 completed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, respectively. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune last August. Both are now on missions that will take the spacecraft to the boundary of our solar system and into interstellar space.

According to Voyager engineers and scientists, the only potential damage from pointing the cameras toward the Sun is that the shutter blades of the wide-angle camera might warp. There are no plans, however, to use Voyager 1's cameras after the solar system photo series is completed.

The Voyager mission is conducted by Caltech's JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications.

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voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on former NASA Administrator and astronaut Richard Truly, who passed away Feb. 27, 2024, at his home in Genesee, Colorado, at the age of 86.

“NASA is the place it is today because of people of character, vision, and a spirit of service – people like the great man we lost Feb. 27, former NASA administrator, associate administrator, and astronaut Richard Truly.

“In his decades of service – to the Navy, to NASA, to his country – Richard lifted ever higher humanity’s quest to know the unknown and to achieve the impossible dream.

“Across his 30 years in the Navy, Richard served as a test pilot and naval aviator, making more than 300 aircraft carrier landings. Richard rose from the role of ensign to vice admiral.

“As an astronaut, Richard was part of the crew for the Approach and Landing Tests of the space shuttle Enterprise. He piloted space shuttle Columbia during STS-2, the first piloted spacecraft reflown in space, and commanded space shuttle Challenger during STS-8 – the first night launch and landing of its era.

“As associate administrator, after the Challenger crisis, Richard brought NASA to its first liftoff and return to flight. He led the Space Shuttle Program to once again take to the skies and reach for the stars. He understood no matter what difficulties we endure, there is only one direction for humanity and NASA: forward.

“As NASA administrator, it also was under Richard’s leadership and judgment that Voyager 1 turned Earthward and took a final picture of our beautiful planet as it floated 3.7 billion miles away. It was the picture that became known as the ‘Pale Blue Dot.’ This is to say that as administrator, Richard’s vision was bold and broad. Humanity is all the better for that vision.

“Woven through these accolades, tests, and triumphs was Richard’s poise as a leader and vision as a pioneer.

“Richard had the makings of someone who understood that we choose to do great things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. He was a personal friend and a mentor to so many of us. I share my deep condolences with Richard’s wife, Cody, and their three children. I invite all those who care for humanity’s quest to reach ever higher to join me in saying farewell to a great public servant.”

For more information about Truly’s NASA career, and his agency biography, visit:  

https://www.nasa.gov/people/richard-h-truly/

Faith McKie / Cheryl Warner Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 [email protected] / [email protected]

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Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch, "it would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. we certainly haven't given up.".

Stephen Clark - Feb 6, 2024 10:04 pm UTC

An annotated image showing the various parts and instruments of NASA's Voyager spacecraft design.

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission's loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA's longest-lived spacecraft.

The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1's ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the spacecraft's science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. So, there's no insight into key parameters regarding the craft's propulsion, power, or control systems.

"It would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. We certainly haven't given up," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Ars. "There are other things we can try. But this is, by far, the most serious since I’ve been project manager."

Dodd became the project manager for NASA's Voyager mission in 2010, overseeing a small cadre of engineers responsible for humanity's exploration into interstellar space. Voyager 1 is the most distant spacecraft ever, speeding away from the Sun at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second).

Voyager 2, which launched 16 days before Voyager 1 in 1977, isn't quite as far away. It took a more leisurely route through the Solar System, flying past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while Voyager 1 picked up speed during an encounter with Saturn to overtake its sister spacecraft.

For the last couple of decades, NASA has devoted Voyager's instruments to studying cosmic rays, the magnetic field, and the plasma environment in interstellar space. They're not taking pictures anymore. Both probes have traveled beyond the heliopause, where the flow of particles emanating from the Sun runs into the interstellar medium.

There are no other operational spacecraft currently exploring interstellar space. NASA's New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is on track to reach interstellar space in the 2040s.

State-of-the-art 50 years ago

The latest problem with Voyager 1 lies in the probe's Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft working alongside a command-and-control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing.

The FDS is responsible for collecting science and engineering data from the spacecraft's network of sensors and then combining the information into a single data package in binary code—a series of ones and zeros. A separate component called the Telemetry Modulation Unit actually sends the data package back to Earth through Voyager's 12-foot (3.7-meter) dish antenna.

In November, the data packages transmitted by Voyager 1 manifested a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were stuck, according to NASA. Dodd said engineers at JPL have spent the better part of three months trying to diagnose the cause of the problem. She said the engineering team is "99.9 percent sure" the problem originated in the FDS, which appears to be having trouble "frame syncing" data.

A scanned 1970s-era photo of the Flight Data Subsystem computer aboard NASA's Voyager spacecraft.

So far, the ground team believes the most likely explanation for the problem is a bit of corrupted memory in the FDS. However, because of the computer hangup, engineers lack detailed data from Voyager 1 that might lead them to the root of the issue. "It's likely somewhere in the FDS memory," Dodd said. "A bit got flipped or corrupted. But without the telemetry, we can't see where that FDS memory corruption is."

When it was developed five decades ago, Voyager's Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to make use of volatile memory. Each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers, but Voyager 1's backup FDS failed in 1981, according to Dodd.

The only signal Voyager 1's Earthbound engineers have received since November is a carrier tone, which basically tells the team the spacecraft is still alive. There's no indication of any other major problems. Changes in the carrier signal's modulation indicate Voyager 1 is receiving commands uplinked from Earth.

"Unfortunately, we haven't cracked the nut yet, or solved the problem, or gotten any telemetry back," Dodd said.

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Channel ars technica.

NYTimes Crossword Answers

New York Times Crossword Answers

Iconic Voyager 1 photograph taken 3.7 billion miles from Earth NYT Crossword

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

Iconic Voyager 1 photograph taken 37 billion miles from Earth Crossword Clue NYT . The NYTimes Crossword is a classic crossword puzzle. Both the main and the mini crosswords are published daily and published all the solutions of those puzzles for you. Two or more clue answers mean that the clue has appeared multiple times throughout the years.

ICONIC VOYAGER 1 PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN 37 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH Nytimes Crossword Clue Answer

  • PALEBLUEDOT
  • 1a Line just above total maybe
  • 4a Place for three men of verse
  • 10a Mideast site of conflict
  • 14a That Sp
  • 15a Nothing doing
  • 16a Series of courses
  • 17a Response to a baby animal picture
  • 18a aria label Asymmetrical crustacean
  • 20a Like many tournaments
  • 22a Swiss river
  • 23a discount
  • 24a aria label Creature whose scientific name translates to ice lover from Greenland
  • 26a Game island represented by hexagonal tiles
  • 28a Like a planets path
  • 29a Reason to take a back road maybe
  • 31a mater brain cover
  • 32a Testify
  • 34a aria label North Americas heaviest flying bird
  • 40a Boldly stylish in slang
  • 41a Comics sound
  • 43a Pastries usually accompanied by chutney
  • 46a Like a final desperate attempt
  • 50a Romantic infatuation
  • 51a aria label Zazu from The Lion King eg
  • 52a Store posting Abbr
  • 53a Pulitzer winning author who was also a film critic for Time magazine
  • 56a Salt at times
  • 57a Mistakes in baseball or what 18 24 34 and 51 Across might produce
  • 61a Running shoe brand
  • 62a Jhumpa Pulitzer winning author of Interpreter of Maladies
  • 63a better to have loved and lost
  • 64a Telegraph say
  • 65a Safari pest
  • 66a Time for Pariss 2024 Jeux Olympiques

voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

David Solves NYT Crossword on a daily basis. Solutions and Commentary available everyday.

Interesting Engineering

NASA engineers rally to save voyager 1, the icon of space exploration

N ASA engineers are undertaking their last rounds of efforts in a final push to re-establish communication with Voyager 1. As the second-longest operating spacecraft in history, Voyager 1 has ventured more than 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) from Earth, securing its place as the farthest-traveled object crafted by humanity.

NASA announced in a statement that since mid-November 2023, the interstellar Voyager 1 probe has encountered difficulties transmitting data gathered by its scientific instruments back to Earth.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is not just the first spacecraft to travel into interstellar space (making it the farthest human-made object ever), but it has also made some other substantial discoveries. It found new moons around Jupiter, spotted another ring around Saturn, and took a special picture of all the planets together in one shot, like a big family photo.

"Sad and frustrated to have the spacecraft still working but muted. Even though we know the end could come at any time, losing a spacecraft is never easy. Especially one like Voyager 1," said Bruce Waggoner, the Voyager mission assurance manager, in a conversation with Space.com . 

Flight data system

NASA engineers are currently addressing an issue concerning one of the three onboard computers of Voyager 1, known as the flight data system (FDS). Although the spacecraft is successfully receiving and executing commands from Earth, the FDS is experiencing communication difficulties with one of its subsystems, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). Consequently, according to NASA, no scientific or engineering data is being transmitted back to Earth. 

The FDS has multiple functions, including collecting data from scientific instruments and monitoring the spacecraft's health and status. It then consolidates this information into a single data package for transmission to Earth via the TMU. This data is encoded in binary form, comprising combinations of ones and zeros, which form the basis of all computer language.

In December, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU) started transmitting a recurring sequence of ones and zeros, indicating a potential "stuck" condition. After eliminating other potential causes, the Voyager team identified the flight data system (FDS) as the source of the problem. Later, attempts were made to reboot the FDS and restore it to its previous operational state, but unfortunately, the spacecraft continues to fail to transmit usable data, according to NASA. 

Challenging issues

Consulting original documents written decades ago by engineers who did not foresee present-day issues is often necessary to address challenges encountered by the probes. According to the space agency, this process requires considerable time for the team to grasp how a new command might impact the spacecraft's operations, thus preventing unintended consequences. 

Furthermore, increasing the challenge is that all commands dispatched from mission controllers on Earth require 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1, which is currently exploring the outer reaches of our solar system, over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth. Consequently, the engineering team must patiently wait 45 hours to receive a response from Voyager 1, enabling them to assess whether a command produced the desired outcome.

"This week, the team will send more commands to the spacecraft to gather information about the status of the onboard systems. In the coming weeks, the team expects to start making more aggressive attempts to reset various systems that might influence the FDS," said NASA engineers in a conversation with IFLScience . 

Voyager 2, the sibling of Voyager 1, was launched just 16 days after its counterpart and continues to function effectively. Managed and operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, these probes are unique in their exploration of interstellar space—the expansive realm traversed by our Sun and its accompanying planets.

NASA engineers rally to save voyager 1, the icon of space exploration

IMAGES

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    voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

  2. It's Official Voyager 1 has Finally Reached Interstellar Space

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  3. Voyager 1: Facts about Earth's farthest spacecraft

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  4. Voyager-1 spacecraft: 40 years of history and interstellar flight

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  5. Voyager 1 Launch

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  6. Photo of Earth from 3.7 Billion miles by Voyager 1 (1990

    voyager 1 photo 3.7 billion

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  14. Voyager

    Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth. ... Voyager 1, rather than Voyager 2, received the solar system photo assignment largely because of Voyager 1's improved viewpoint of the planets. Voyager 1 completed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, respectively. Voyager 2 flew past ...

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  20. The best space pictures from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions

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  22. NASA Honors Life of Former Administrator, Astronaut Richard Truly

    "As NASA administrator, it also was under Richard's leadership and judgment that Voyager 1turned Earthward and took a final picture of our beautiful planet as it floated 3.7 billion miles away. It was the picture that became known as the "Pale Blue Dot." This is to say that as administrator, Richard's vision was bold and broad.

  23. Humanity's most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch

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    ICONIC VOYAGER 1 PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN 37 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH Nytimes Crossword Clue Answer. PALEBLUEDOT This clue was last seen on NYTimes November 24, 2022 Puzzle. If you are done solving this clue take a look below to the other clues found on today's puzzle in case you may need help with any of them. In front of each clue we have added its ...

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