The Voyager 2 probe, which left Earth 33 years ago, began sending messages to Earth that could not be decoded.

In 1977, when this spacecraft was launched by NASA as part of the Voyager program, scientists placed a data carrier (12-inch disk) in it. Realizing that the likelihood of contact with a highly developed extraterrestrial life form, nevertheless, existed, they recorded samples of music on this disc, as well as greetings in 55 different languages.

IN present moment, the data stream from Voyager 2 cannot be deciphered: the signals it sends have an unknown format. Despite the fact that NASA officially explains the situation as a failure in the system responsible for encoding data, there is alternative opinion, according to which the change in format was the result of the very contact for which scientists prepared Voyager 2 in 1977.

Ufologist Hartwig Hausdorf comments on the situation as follows: “It seems as if someone reprogrammed or stole the probe - but perhaps we still don’t know the whole truth.”
The format in which Voyager 2 sent research information changed last month when it was 8.6 billion miles from Earth. According to NASA representatives, agency specialists are working to resolve the problem. IN at the moment the probe is switched to a mode in which it transmits data only about its state.

VOYAGER 2 EXPLORS URANIUS

Borislav Slavolubov

August 20, 1977 from the cosmodrome of the Space Center named after. Kennedy launched the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Initially, the station launched towards Jupiter and Saturn. However, at the turn of the 70s and 80s, all the giant planets were successfully located in a relatively narrow sector solar system("parade of planets"). Last time such a “meeting” took place 180 years ago. The use of the gravity maneuver made Voyager's further flight possible - to Uranus and Neptune. Without such a maneuver, the flight to Uranus would have lasted 20 years longer, 30 years instead of 9 - the station would still be flying.

After flying past Saturn, under the influence of the gravity of this planet, Voyager 2 performed a perturbation maneuver (turning almost 90°) and switched to a flight path towards Uranus. In 1981, the probability of completing the scientific program at Uranus was estimated at 60-70%. During the flyby of the Saturn system, the rotating platform of the device jammed. In order to understand what the problem is, in the Laboratory Jet Propulsion(JPL) urgently produced 86 (!) mock-ups of the platform’s power drive, on which they conducted a comprehensive study of the emergency situation. It was discovered that the cause of the jam was a heavy load on the platform near Saturn, and the problem can be fixed. A program for more accurate platform management was developed. As a backup option, instrument guidance was provided by turning the entire station using micro-orientation engines.

In 1986 in southern hemisphere Uranus experienced a polar summer. The south pole of the planet was facing the Sun (and the approaching Voyager 2). Due to the large inclination of the Uranus satellite system relative to the ecliptic, it was decided to fly close to only one satellite. In 1984, Miranda was chosen as this companion. It was decided that the minimum distance to Miranda would be 29 thousand kilometers. The option of a closer approach was also considered - up to 15 thousand kilometers, but in this case the image shift compensation system of television cameras could not prevent blurring of the resulting images.
When flying past Uranus, for the first time, new 64-meter antennas installed in the USA, Spain and Australia were used to communicate with Voyager 2. Due to the drop in the power of radioisotope batteries (up to 400 W), it was necessary to limit scientific program and use the devices one at a time.
In the period from November 4, 1985 to January 10, 1986, the station conducted survey observations of Uranus using television cameras that recorded formations in the planet’s atmosphere and the movement of its satellites. In the images taken on December 30, a new satellite was discovered - Pak, about 170 km in size. Around this time, the main ring and several others were photographed. As it gradually approached Uranus during January 1986, about a dozen more small internal satellites several tens of kilometers in size.
In addition to the previously known 9 rings, 2 more weak rings were discovered - 1986 U1R and 1986 U2R. Additionally, the spacecraft's photopolarimeter detected at least several more incomplete rings lying outside the Epsilon ring.

It was also discovered that the narrow rings are embedded in a wide, sparse ring.

It was concluded that the Epsilon ring consists of large particles measuring about 1 meter in size (more precisely, from 10 cm to 10 m).
6 days before the closest approach to Uranus, a serious failure in data transmission occurred. It turned out that when switching to a more powerful compression algorithm (Reed-Solon) when transmitting data, the images were distorted by a grid of black and white lines. One group, not trusting the computer, processed all the pixels by hand. The result was the same. Another group prepared a new task for the device: to read and transmit to Earth everything that it recorded in memory. Many hours passed before a response was received. The comparison showed that among many kilobytes of program in one eight-bit word, one of the zeros was replaced by a one. The request from Earth and the response from Voyager 2 showed that it was not possible to transfer this cell to the “zero” state. Then the programmers rewrote this part of the program so that the defective trigger would not cause distortion. Four days before the approach, the program was sent on board. Telemetry information began to arrive without distortion.
Much less detail was observed in the atmosphere of Uranus than in the atmospheres of Saturn and Jupiter. The resulting images show a brownish haze over the southern polar region, illuminated by the Sun, as well as some cloud formations at different latitudes, moving at different speeds.

Winds have been discovered whose direction coincides with the direction of rotation of the planet, and at high latitudes the circulation of the atmosphere occurs at a higher speed than at the equator. In the most upper layers The atmosphere temperature is high: 750 K on the day side and 1000 K on the night side of the planet. In the lower part of the atmosphere above both poles the temperature is the same. Studies of temperature as a function of latitude have shown that it is the same at high latitudes near the pole and at low latitudes near the equator. A cold belt 10-15° wide has been recorded, the axis of which extends approximately along the 40th parallel. The atmospheric temperature in this belt is significantly lower than in adjacent areas. The station discovered a crown on Uranus atomic hydrogen over molecular hydrogen. The temperature of this corona on the day side is 750 K, on ​​the night side 1000 K.
Voyager 2 discovered a magnetosphere near Uranus with a strength of 0.25 G. Its polarity is the same as that of Jupiter and Saturn, and opposite to the polarity magnetic field Earth and Mercury. The station's magnetometers showed that within the planet's magnetosphere there are orbits of the satellites Miranda, Ariel and Umbriel. Magnetic field disturbances were recorded by these three satellites. The planet's magnetosphere plume extends over a long distance. During the passage of the plume, a change in the direction of the field to the opposite direction was recorded, due to the inclination of the magnetic axis of Uranus to the axis of rotation. This tilt is about 60 degrees, more than any other planet in the solar system. When Uranus rotates, its magnetic axis moves in space and carries with it power lines magnetic field, twisting them.
Uranus's inner magnetosphere appears to be a combination of hot (100,000 K) and very hot (10,000,000 K) ions. Hot ions found close to the planet are 10 times more dense than the very hot ions found on either side of Miranda's orbit. It is believed that the source of these ions is not solar wind, and the satellites of Uranus more distant from the planet. The ions they generate (mainly protons) when approaching the planet can be absorbed by Miranda. Registration device cosmic radiation discovered an increase in the intensity of Uranus's magnetic field inside Miranda's orbit. The intensity of Uranus' radiation belts is almost the same as that of the Earth's belts, and somewhat less than that of Saturn's belts. The belts of Uranus have lower electron content high energy than in the Earth's belts.
Observations of the magnetic field of Uranus were also important because they made it possible to determine the period of rotation of Uranus around its axis and, based on this, the speed of winds in the atmosphere by tracking the movement of cloud formations.
The glow of Uranus in the UV range has been recorded, extending approximately 50 thousand km from the planet. On the night side of the planet, auroral phenomena were discovered in the area magnetic pole. Intense so-called “electric glow” of the atmosphere on the day side of the planet and radio emission from the night side were also recorded. The density of the exosphere reaches 100 pieces per cubic cm at the level of the outermost ring.

A few days before the flyby of Uranus, the station began detailed photography of the largest satellites:

On the day of the flyby, unprecedented resolution images of the four largest satellites were obtained. The station flew closest to these satellites from Ariel - 130 thousand kilometers. As a result, images were obtained with a resolution of up to 2-3 kilometers per pixel, showing the geologically active surface of the satellite. For other satellites, the distance was much higher: Umbriel 557 thousand km. (10 km per pixel), Titania - 369 thousand km. (13 km per pixel) and Oberon - 660 thousand km (12 km per pixel).

Voyager 2 passed within 81,200 km of the cloud layer of Uranus on January 24, 1986. As the AMS passed through the plane of the rings at a distance of about 100 thousand km from the center of the planet, an instrument for studying waves in plasma recorded approximately 30 weak collisions with particles every second. Around the same time, the AMS approached Miranda - up to 30 thousand kilometers from its surface. This made it possible to obtain images with a resolution of 560 meters per pixel.

But, unfortunately, all five large satellites Uranus were filmed from only one - the subsolar hemisphere.
After 3 hours, the AMS entered the radio shadow of Uranus and carried out radio sounding of its atmosphere. Filming of the Uranus system continued after the flyby of the planet. In total, about 6 thousand images of Uranus, its satellites and rings were received from the AMS.

40 years ago the space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched. In just 12 years, they flew near the four major planets of the solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Both space probes operate continuously and send data back to Earth, although they are currently far beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Let's go back to 1965, when the competition to land on the moon was hot and NASA had the money and confidence to achieve the big dream.

At that moment, no one thought about Voyager, because everyone thought that space technology was not yet ready for travel of many billions of kilometers beyond the solar system.

But there was already money to hire young and promising mathematicians who were involved in science in a large research center California JPL, and two of this group of mathematicians created the basis for the development of Voyager.

Michael Minovich and Gary Flandro were tasked with exploring possible flight paths for space probes in the solar system. This was a study under the slogan "Timely Prudence" and was to continue until rocketry will not reach the required level of development.

No one expected any outstanding results, but these two young mathematicians established that in the period from 1976 to 1979 there was unique opportunity to launch a space probe into flight near four major planets without high fuel consumption. This was an opportunity that came once every 176 years. It was during these three years that the planets were positioned in such a way that it was possible to use the gravity of one planet to fly the probe further to the next planet.

Context

In what part of the solar system did Voyager 1 end up?

Voyager 1 discovered a strange area at the edge of the solar system

Humanity strives beyond the solar system

NASA did not miss this opportunity: plans were quickly developed for a large expedition to the solar system.

It was planned to send at least four space probes and in addition to explore distant Pluto. In 1976-77, it was planned to send two probes to Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, and in 1979, two more probes to Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.

But the American Congress, which learned that this project cost more than a billion dollars, did not like it. It was a lot of money at the time. Congress only wanted money for two space probes that would take advantage of the planets' favorable alignments to explore Jupiter and Saturn.

NASA is preparing for the "Great Walk"

NASA committed a small act of civil disobedience, which, however, has now been forgiven.

Voyager 1 did exactly that official plan, which was limited to visiting only Jupiter and Saturn, which made it possible to close range explore Jupiter's moon Io and large satellite Saturn Titan.

But this also meant that Voyager 1 was in an orbit from which it was impossible to fly further to Uranus and Neptune. Scientists had a secret idea to keep Voyager 2 in reserve. It received a slow track and therefore flew behind Voyager 1 all the time. While Voyager 1 completed its tasks, Voyager 2 was allowed to complete its original mission and fly to the four large planets, that is, to make the “Great Walk,” as the expedition was later called.

This decision had a funny consequence: Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1. As a result, the fast Voyager 1 was the first to reach Jupiter and Saturn. And the slow Voyager 2 had to be content with second place, but it got the opportunity to become the first probe to reach Uranus and Neptune.

A major oversight leads to extra work

Therefore, Voyager 2 was launched on August 20th. And although it was a “slow” probe, it nevertheless reached a speed of 52 thousand km per hour, as a result of which it flew past the orbit of the Moon in less than 10 hours.

Two weeks later, the fast Voyager 1 was launched, and now everyone was hoping for a smooth flight to Jupiter. But then a glitch occurred, as a result of which a significant number of engineers had to work overtime over the next 12 years.

The control center forgot to send a routine message to Voyager 2. When the Voyager 2 computer did not receive the expected message, its instructions stated that this could only happen if the on-board receiver malfunctioned. It was believed that the control center simply could not forget about this operation.

Voyager 2 obediently switched to a spare receiver, but it was not properly configured and could only receive signals in a very narrow frequency range of 96 hertz, and this created problems.

The control center naturally sent signals at a very specific frequency, but since Voyager was moving very quickly relative to the Earth, due to the Doppler effect, it received a signal at a different frequency. Therefore, the receiver was configured to receive signals in the 100,000 hertz range.

Voyager 2 was silent

The first reaction was to transfer Voyager 2 to the main receiver, but this receiver immediately broke down completely. As a result, NASA lost the ability to send commands to the space probe.

This turned out to be a much bigger problem than expected. The speed relative to the Earth was easy to calculate, but what was much worse was that even very minor changes probe temperatures of less than 0.3 degrees changed the frequency range of the receiver so much that contact with the Earth was interrupted. It was discovered that even when one instrument was turned on or one of the control engines was used, the temperature of the space probe varied.

Over the course of several years, NASA engineers developed a complete mathematical model Voyager, which could calculate the temperature of the probe to within one hundredth of a degree. The model was developed throughout the probe's flight to Neptune; communication with it was interrupted for several days.

Voyager sends first images to Earth

In March 1979, Voyager 1 reached Jupiter, and scientists were literally amazed by the fantastic photographs sent to the center: clouds and a red spot on Jupiter, the orange moon Io and white, all ice-covered Europa.

Scientists learned what "Instant Science" means when journalists at JPL immediately asked for clarification on photographs that had only arrived hours earlier and therefore had not been carefully analyzed by experts.

For many scientists accustomed to peaceful life and suddenly found themselves in large audience in front of dozens of journalists eager to get an answer, this became a real test.

Rainy weather over Australia causes problems

During the probe's flight over Australia, where a large tracking station is located, heavy rain caused problems. Voyager sent its data to Earth only at a wavelength of 3.6 cm, and radio waves of such short wavelengths had difficulty passing through rain clouds. Because of this, data was lost for several hours.

But an unexpected event occurred only a few days later, when Voyager 1 was on its way from Jupiter to Saturn.

For reliable navigation, it was necessary to know Voyager's position accurately, and this had to be done, in particular, by photographing the moon Io along with the mass of stars in the background. Therefore, a long shutter speed was used, as a result of which Io looked like an illuminated white disk in the photograph.

The task of analyzing the photographs on the computer was carried out by a young member of the navigation team, Linda Morabito. She discovered that there was something resembling a cloud over Io. Io has no atmosphere, so no one expected there to be clouds several hundred kilometers above the surface.

Tidal forces and volcanic activity

It was immediately suspected that it was a volcanic eruption, but experts who could examine the photographs were on holiday over the weekend. Therefore, three whole days passed before NASA was able to reveal that the first active volcanoes outside the Earth had been discovered.

This news had special meaning for three American scientists. Just a week ago, they published an article in Science where they predicted the existence of volcanoes as a consequence of the powerful tidal forces of Jupiter and the neighboring moons Europa and Ganymede acting on Io.

Four months later, Voyager 2 approached Jupiter. Now scientists were ready to monitor the volcanoes on Io and take a closer look at Europa's intact icy surface. Today it is believed that this icy surface hides a sea, which can be up to 100 km deep and in which life can exist.

And thanks to Voyager measurements, we now know that tidal forces cause hard surface Io moves up and down with a height difference of up to 100 meters. It is therefore not surprising that the heat resulting from this leads to intense volcanic activity.

Voyager 1 flies close to Titan

It was a quiet time before Voyager 1's approach to Saturn in November 1980. Scientists could once again just sit and admire fantastic photos rings of Saturn. However, the greatest expectations were associated with the flight near Titan. This flight past Titan ruled out the possibility for Voyager 1 to continue its flight to Uranus and Neptune.

But the only thing that could be seen was a completely impenetrable orange cloud cover. However, the composition of the atmosphere has been studied, which mainly consists of carbon dioxide With a small amount methane Surface pressure was 1.6 times stronger than on Earth.

Measurements have shown that in the orange haze around Titan there are large quantities organic molecules when the sun's light impacts the methane. This means that Titan, in any case, receives many molecules that are a prerequisite for the emergence of life. Unfortunately, the measurements showed a temperature of minus 180 degrees. This is a little cold for life, but it is a temperature that gives a good chance of finding methane on the surface of the sea.

It would still take 30 years before the Cassini space probe, using radar, was able to see famous seas methane in the northern and south poles Titan.

Voyager 2 encounters problems again

Voyager 2 flew to Saturn in August 1981, and at first everything went well despite problems with the receiver. He took a photo small satellite Enceladus, on which, as we know today, huge geysers burst out of cracks on the ice-covered surface, and took photographs ice satellite Hyperion, which is very similar to a washing sponge.

But then problems began. The rotating platform with scientific instruments jammed, and a lot of data was lost. Once again, engineers had to work extra hours, but the situation continued to get worse because NASA had 108 employees instead of 200 due to staff cuts.

Big workload led to physical and mental fatigue for many employees.

But the problems were identified; they were related to the gearbox that controls the turntable. The problem was lubrication. When the platform turned quickly, the grease flew off the gears in zero gravity, which meant that the metal parts were touching each other. Small metal shavings appeared and came off, blocking movement. The problem could have been avoided by turning the platform slowly.

Flight to Uranus

Fortunately, there was plenty of time to solve this problem, because Voyager 2 had to fly from Saturn to Uranus for almost five years. Nevertheless it was difficult time, because, as already mentioned, the flight to Uranus was not entirely calm.

Three large tracking stations in California, Spain, and Australia had to be upgraded so that they could receive the extremely important signals from Voyager's small transmitter, which had only 20 watts of power. One way is using electronic devices connect large 64 meter dish antennas to smaller 34 meter antennas so that they can function as one large dish.

Another problem was the high speed at which Voyager 2 flew past Uranus. The photos turned out very blurry because sunlight in the region of Uranus is so weak that it is necessary to hold the frame for a long time. All this led to ingenious solutions - in addition to what was done with the turntable (Eventually, instead of turning just the platform, for fear that it would jam again, they turned the entire space probe).

Accident when meeting Uranus

When Voyager 2 approached Uranus in January 1986, the only thing that could be seen was a large bluish-green ball with no visible signs of clouds. What Voyager saw appeared to be a layer of haze in a deep atmosphere composed of light hydrogen and helium with small amounts of methane and other carbohydrates.

But Voyager's flight was remembered for something else.

On January 28, 1986, NASA was supposed to present the first photographs of the small moons of Uranus - in particular, Miranda, which, as it turned out, has sheer icy cliffs almost 10 kilometers high. But the press conference never took place because other images appeared on the audience's television screens. There was an explosion shown space shuttle Challenger, which killed seven astronauts.

Over and over again they showed the white cloud of steam from the explosion and two auxiliary rocket engine, scattered in different directions. After that, no one wanted to participate in the press conference dedicated to Uranus. So Voyager 2 quietly left Uranus and began its three-year journey to Neptune.

Farewell and a new beginning

In August 1989, Voyager 2 flew to Neptune, the final target of the Great Walk, which Congress never authorized.

This time it was about a real celebration of spacecraft in Pasadena, where JPL is located. Thousands of people took part in it and were rewarded interesting photos beautiful blue Neptune with white clouds, which were driven by the storm at a speed of 2,000 km per hour.

It still remains a mystery how a planet on such long distance from the Sun and with a very low temperature - minus 215 degrees = could have enough energy to create such powerful storms.

Soon it was time to say goodbye to Voyager 2. and this farewell was photographs of the large icy satellite Triton, which surprised by the presence of geysers. At least 50 sites were found with long, dark traces of some form of eruption.

Some photographs show that the geysers reach heights of 8 kilometers, where they meet some kind of jet stream in a very thin atmosphere. It stretches the sheer geysers, turning them into long streaks of smoke. It is believed that geysers are so dark because they are not only made of steam, but also contain dust and organic matter.

The flight has just begun

The flight past Neptune was the end of the "Great Walk", a journey that can rightfully be compared to the landings on the Moon. But this was not a farewell to the Solar System, which neither Voyager 1 nor Voyager 2 had yet left.

To mark the completion, a farewell photograph of all the planets in the solar system was taken in 1990. On them the Earth is visible as a small “light blue dot" This photograph of our Earth from a distance of 6 billion km has become a kind of symbol showing how little space we actually occupy in the universe.

Both Voyager probes are now far from the orbit of Pluto and from the Kuiper belt, which consists of small icy planets. But they still have to travel thousands of years before they reach the last outpost of our solar system, namely the Oort Cloud, which is considered the birthplace of many comets.

Voyager 1 set a record by traveling a distance of 141 astronomical units from the Sun (one astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun).

The slow Voyager 2 traveled only 116 AU. Both probes constantly send data back to Earth, which now mainly concerns the solar wind and the Sun's magnetic field.

Scientists hope to maintain contact with both old space probes until 2025. These two probes are almost eternal representatives of humanity, although they are unlikely to be found by any other civilization.

Message from earthlings

Both Voyagers carry with them a message from earthlings, written on a 30-centimeter gold-plated plate mounted on board.

The message was developed by a commission led by the famous astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan (Carl Sagan, 1934 - 1996). Since the likelihood that these probes will ever be found is infinitesimal, we can take this message as a message to ourselves.

It includes both pictures and sounds, which are placed on the plate in encrypted form. This is a series of pictures describing how the contents of the plate can be reproduced. Playback should run at 16 2/3 revolutions per minute using the stylus that comes with the plate. It's old-fashioned, but technically sound if recipients can figure out a series of drawings.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

On September 5, 1977, the Voyager 1 interplanetary station was launched, the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Although its mission was supposed to last no more than five years, the probe is still operating and transmitting valuable information to Earth. Over the past time, the device has managed to move away from the surface of our planet to a distance of 139.6 astronomical units. This year we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1 and talk about the history of the project.

The idea of ​​the Voyager project was put forward by the NASA aerospace agency in the late 60s. IN 1976 A rare event for the solar system was about to happen - once every 177 years, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune find themselves on the same side of our star for three years, so that from Earth they are visible in a small area of ​​the sky. NASA engineers decided to use this phenomenon to launch two research stations- the favorable location of the planets allowed the probes to perform gravitational maneuvers and save fuel.

In 1977, Voyager 1 and its equally famous twin, Voyager 2, set off to explore then-little-explored worlds. Despite the number in the name, Voyager 2 was the first ship to be launched into space. The fact is that the probes were supposed to fly around the giant planets with different sides to collect as much information about them as possible. Voyager 2 flew along a so-called slow trajectory and was supposed to approach all four planets, while Voyager 1 explored only Jupiter and Saturn and its path was noticeably shorter. Since scientists knew from the very beginning that the probe launched later would reach the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter earlier than its twin brother, they named it accordingly.

Before sending the Voyagers to outer space, NASA engineers reviewed more than 10 thousand possible trajectories flight, after which they chose only one (and, as it turned out, a successful one). However, even after such detailed preparation, many were not confident that the mission would be a success. Almost immediately after launch, Voyager 2 experienced technical problems, so engineers were in no hurry to send the second device into space. Voyager 1 was originally scheduled to launch on September 1, but was postponed twice. Despite the fact that NASA considers the probe’s flight “precise and flawless,” the memories of mission participants say otherwise. According to John Casani, the program's director, just after liftoff, he and Charles Colaise, Voyager's mission advisor and navigation expert, were in the control room at the Cape Canaveral launch center when they received poor readings from the Titan IIIE launch vehicle. Centaurus"). It seemed that Voyager 1 would not reach its goal. “I was scared. We were scared,” said Kasani. Colais turned to Kasani, who was sitting next to him: “John, we may fail. We don't have enough speed."

A tiny, initially undetected leak was discovered in the Titan's second stage fuel line, which created serious problems during startup. Even if Voyager 1 reached the limits of low-Earth orbit, it might not be fast enough to successfully reach its destination. next goal- Jupiter.

However, the launch vehicle had a supply of fuel that could save the situation. The main danger was that empty fuel pumps could explode and damage Voyager 1 if the fuel were completely used up. However, Titan Centauri delivered the probe into orbit three seconds before it ran out of fuel, saving the mission.

Voyager 2

Voyager 2 launched from Cape Canaveral on August 20, 1977. Its flight trajectory made it possible to explore not only Jupiter and Saturn and their satellites, but also two other gas giants - Uranus and Neptune.

Voyager 2 became the first and only spacecraft to study all four outer planets of the solar system at close range. In addition, the probe photographed Ganymede and Europa, the Galilean moons of Jupiter - thanks to these images, scientists first hypothesized the existence of a liquid ocean beyond the Earth.

Voyager 2 also took images of Saturn's rings and the surface of its moons, thousands of images of Uranus, its moons and rings, and unique photos Neptune. Now its mission, like that of Voyager 1, continues - the device is moving further and further away from us and is now exploring interstellar space.

By the way, initially the Voyagers were supposed to become part of the Mariner program, which was studying inner planets, and be named Mariner 11 and Mariner 12, but mission leaders eventually abandoned this idea. Later they wanted to give Voyager 1 the name Mariner-Jupiter-Saturn 77, or MJS-77. “I said, ‘Who cares about the start year of the mission anyway? We need a beautiful, catchy name,” says Kasani. - We held a competition. The main prize for the winner was a box of champagne.” This is how the name Voyager came about.

Since the program from the very beginning implied the exploration of distant planets, scientists could not install on Voyagers solar panels- As you move away from the Sun, the intensity of its radiation decreases noticeably. For example, near the orbit of Neptune it is about 900 times less than that of the shaved Earth. Therefore, the sources of electricity in each of the probes are three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) - they use plutonium-238 as fuel. At the time of launch, their power was approximately 470 watts; Since plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years, generators using it lose 0.78 percent of their power per year. As of September 3, 2017, Voyager 1 had 72.9 percent of its fuel reserves remaining. By 2050, capacity will be reduced to 56.5 percent.

A joint image of the Earth and the Moon taken from Voyager 1

A system of two television cameras is installed on board the spacecraft - wide-angle and narrow-angle. The resolution of a narrow-angle camera is enough to read a newspaper headline at a distance of one kilometer. It was thanks to this system that the spacecraft was able to obtain unique images of the Solar System. For example, two weeks after launch, Voyager 1 took the first ever joint portrait of the Earth and its moon.

In March 1979, the probe reached the outskirts of Jupiter. He photographed the famous Great Red Spot, the largest atmospheric vortex in the solar system, and also discovered volcanic activity on Io, one of the Galilean moons gas giant. This was the first time that scientists were able to see active volcanoes somewhere beyond the Earth. In addition, Voyager 1 made another remarkable discovery - it saw the rings of Jupiter for the first time. Before this, it was believed that only Saturn and Uranus had a ring system.

Active volcano on Io, a moon of Jupiter, in an image taken by Voyager 1

Voyager 1's next stop was Saturn with its famous system of rings and moons. The closest approach between the spacecraft and the planet occurred on November 12, 1980 - then the probe approached the upper layer of clouds at 64.2 thousand kilometers. He sent back to Earth the first high-quality images of rings made of fragments of ice, comets and dust, and also photographed some of Saturn's moons. The spacecraft discovered that the Cassini gap, first noticed in the 17th century, is also a kind of rarefied ring of ice and dust particles. At the same time, a thin and dim E ring was discovered. In addition, infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers installed on board Voyager 1 determined that the planet’s atmosphere consists almost entirely of hydrogen with some helium.

The main mission of the device ended with the study of Saturn and Jupiter, but it continued its space odyssey. In February 1990, Voyager 1 pointed its cameras at our planet and took a series of portraits of the solar system. At the same time, the famous Pale Blue Dot image was taken: it captured the Earth from a distance of 5.9 billion kilometers. The photo gets its name because our planet looks like a tiny blue dot in it; it occupies only 0.12 pixels in the image.

"Pale Blue Dot" from Voyager 1

Subsequently, the American astrophysicist and popularizer of science Carl Sagan wrote about this image in his book: “Look again at this point. It's here. This is our home. This is us. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every person who has ever existed lived their lives on it.<...>every mother and every father, every capable child", inventor and traveler, every ethics teacher, every deceitful politician, every 'superstar', every 'greatest leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here - on a speck suspended in a ray of sunshine."

In February 1998, Voyager 1 overtook Pioneer 10 to become the most distant human-made object from us. Today, the probe is 139.6 astronomical units from Earth (or about 21 billion kilometers - or, to use another unit of measurement immortalized by Jules Verne in his novel, almost 3.76 billion nautical leagues) and continues to move towards the outer limits of the solar system at a speed of 16.9 kilometers per second. On board is a message to alien civilizations - one of the two gold records of Voyager. Carl Sagan and astronomer Francis Drake participated in its creation, who figured out how to use recording technology to engrave not only sounds and music, but also images on a record.

Both Voyagers carry one such golden plate with a message to other civilizations.

The message is a gold-plated copper disc housed in an aluminum case. It records all the most important information about our planet - its types, location relative to 14 powerful pulsars, the composition of the atmosphere, known life forms, the DNA molecule and the sounds of nature. The gold records also tell stories about us humans. If alien civilizations ever decipher the message, they will be able to learn about human anatomy, hear the cry of a child and the whisper of a mother, get acquainted with the music of Bach and Mozart and receive greetings in 55 languages, including Russian. Even when Voyager 1's engines stop working (this will happen in 2030), the golden records will float slowly through space, intact, for at least a billion years.

In December 2004, the Plasma Facility, another scientific instrument aboard Voyager 1, showed that the probe had crossed the heliospheric shock wave, the surface within the heliosphere at which the solar wind abruptly slows to sound speeds(relative to the speed of the Sun itself). This occurs due to the fact that a stream of charged particles “impinges” on interstellar matter, so shock wave considered one of the boundaries of the solar system. The distance to the star at that time was 94 astronomical units.

The blue line in the blue zone on the graph shows how the density of charged particles should theoretically change at different distances from the Sun. Now the probe is in the blue zone, the graph also shows the moment of intersection of the heliospheric shock wave.

In December 2011, Voyager 1 moved to a distance of 119 astronomical units and reached the so-called stagnation region - the last frontier, separating the probe from interstellar space. This region experiences a strong magnetic field because the pressure of charged particles from outer space causes the field created by the Sun to become denser. There is also an increase in the number of high-energy electrons (about 100 times) that arrive from interstellar medium, therefore this region is also considered one of the boundaries of the Solar system.

In the first half of 2012, Voyager 1 reached the boundaries of interstellar space. The device's sensors recorded an increase in the level of galactic rays by 25 percent - this meant that the probe was approaching the boundary of the heliosphere. On September 12, 2013, NASA confirmed that Voyager 1 had left the heliosphere and was now in interstellar space. However, the device is still far from the hypothetical Oort cloud, the limit of the gravitational influence of the Sun.

All scientific instruments Voyager 1 will be turned off by 2025, after which only data on its technical condition will be received from the probe. Today the signal is from space station It takes 17 hours and 20 minutes to reach Earth. In the future, the mission program plans for another approach to a large celestial body - however, it will not happen soon, only after 40 thousand years. The spacecraft will fly within 1.6 light years (15 trillion kilometers) of the star AC+79 3888 in the constellation Giraffe; however, by that time we will no longer be able to receive any data from Voyager 1. After this, the probe will continue to wander through the Milky Way, moving further and further away from its home - Earth. It is collected by the New Horizons interplanetary station, launched by NASA in 2006.

Now this probe, like the Voyagers, is moving towards interstellar space, but is much closer to the Sun - at a distance of 39 astronomical units - and flies much slower, despite more high speed launch. This is due to the fact that Voyager 1 managed to gain extra speed due to the gravitational maneuver of Jupiter. In addition, New Horizons's engines are less powerful than those of the Voyagers, so it will not be able to break the twin probes' range record when the spacecraft ceases operations in the 2020s. total length its path will be 50–55 astronomical units.

Kristina Ulasovich