A NASA scientist saw the first images of the Voyager spacecraft. What he saw gave him chills.

In 1979, Alan Cummings, a scientist working on NASA’s unprecedented Voyager mission, walked into a room at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, and saw an unusual, alien world displayed on a screen.

A brand new image, just sent from space, has revealed a place like never before. It was a moon teeming with vibrant volcanoes. Cummings, a cosmic ray physicist at the California Institute of Technology — the research university that runs NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I thought the Caltech students had pulled a prank,” Cummings told Mashable. “But no, it was real.”

It was Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanic place in our solar system. It was not like our pale moon, a barren surface turned to fine dust by countless impacts. On Io, volcanoes erupted. Lava flowed. He was Alive.

“It gives me chills, even now,” said Cummings, who began working on the Voyager mission 51 years ago.

The two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 Built to last five years. They are now approaching 50 years of operation, and are respectively more than 15 and 12 billion miles. They left behind the influence of our star and entered interstellar space. “This is the only spacecraft that has ever been there,” Cummings marveled. Decades later, the craft and its aging computers have encountered a number of glitches, which have been repeatedly remedied by a smart group of dedicated Voyager engineers.

But the final hurdle may be dangerous. NASA reported That engineers are still working on a stubborn problem the agency identified in December: They can send messages to Voyager 1, but “no science or engineering data is sent back to Earth.” There is a problem with an important on-board computer, the flight data system. The space agency recently received a memory “readout” from Voyager 1 (at such a great distance, it takes nearly a day for a message from the craft to reach us), which the team is now examining for hints at a solution. This drawn-out affair unsettles onlookers in space.

“It gives me chills, even now.”

In fact, Voyager persevered. But their power is limited. In the next few years or so, NASA may need to decommission more instruments to conserve dwindling nuclear fuel. Eventually, perhaps in the mid-2030s, communications will cease. But these robotic explorers forever changed Cummings’ view – and our view – of what’s out there.

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The Voyager missions changed our view of deep space

The Voyager missions, originally designed to explore Jupiter and Saturn, have greatly exceeded their original two-planet itinerary. For Cummings and some of his Voyager colleagues, this was always the plan. After all, the vehicle is nuclear-powered. They won’t run out of fuel for decades.

“The biggest problem was overshooting the launch pad,” the physicist said, recalling a number of failed launches. “Many of us had the goal of reaching interstellar space.”

Shortly after launch, both rovers arrived at Jupiter, where they ventured past the gas giant in 1979. They revealed the planet like never before. Scientists saw Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, with belts of vibrant clouds moving in alternate directions and teeming with giant storms, some larger than Earth.

“We were shocked and amazed” Cummings said.

But the Jovian moons were the stars of the show, too. Along with volcanic Io, the mission captured views of ice-covered Europa, with giant fissures crisscrossing the surface. Interested planetary scientists have continued to study Europa, and now suspect a salty ocean — about 40 to 100 miles (60 to 150 kilometers) deep — flows beneath this icy surface. Another NASA probe, Heading to EuropeHe will leave Earth soon.

“We were shocked and amazed.”

Then both vehicles continued their journey to the majestic Saturn. The spacecraft observed stunning details in the rings, discovered moons, and found that Titan has a thick atmosphere and possibly seas of methane. Years later, researchers can’t get away. NASA will send a car-sized rover, equipped with eight rotors, to Saturn’s moon in 2028, in a mission called Dragonfly. It will land on ice-covered sand dunes on Titan, an environment that may have resembled early Earth.

Saturn and four of its moons, captured by Voyager 2 in 1981.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/USGS

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At this point, Voyager has taken different paths through the solar system. Voyager 1 continued on toward the far reaches of our cosmic neighbourhood, while Voyager 2 first made historic expeditions to Uranus and Neptune – the “ice giants.” Once again, the moons were stars.

For the first time, scientists like Cummings have seen Uranus’ icy, grooved moon Miranda. He was surrounded by something. “It looked like the Death Star,” he said, referring to the moon-sized space station in Star Wars. Then there was Neptune’s strange moon Triton, a world about 3 billion miles away. Voyager 2 detected maximum surface temperatures of -391 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 235 degrees Celsius) on this frozen world. However, the Moon still spews out miles-high plumes of icy material from geysers.

“It’s pretty amazing that we’ve seen all this activity on cold moons,” Cummings said.

But Voyager wasn’t nearly finished. After all, it was only 1989.

Uranus’ icy moon Miranda, captured by Voyager 2 in 1986.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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On February 14, 1990, NASA engineers planned to turn off Voyager 1’s cameras to conserve power. The flights of glorious worlds have ended, and the journey to the furthest reaches of our solar system has begun. But the space agency has captured one final set of shots, a “family photo” of the distant planets that Voyager left in the dust. A view called “Pale Blue Dot” is included; It’s a look back at home, from 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away.

The famous cosmologist Carl Sagan wrote: “Look again at that point. This is here. This is home. This is us.”

Voyager will keep moving forward, surviving the perpetual cold and enduring the threat of galactic cosmic rays — energetic particles created by powerful events in the universe, such as exploding stars.

Both spacecraft have now entered interstellar space, the region between the stars. They have traveled beyond the shielding balloon of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun, collecting unprecedented information about radiation in the unknown realm of space (although Voyager 1 is not currently transmitting this information). “The science data that Voyager returns becomes more valuable the farther it gets from the sun, so we’re certainly interested in keeping as many science instruments running as long as possible,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist. He said last year.

The “pale blue dot” or Earth, captured by the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Cummings hopes the remaining tools will remain online for a few more years or so, at least until the mission reaches its half-century mark. However, even when the two spacecraft run out of power, the larger mission will not be over. In fact, the longest part of her expedition will begin as a space messenger.

NASA explains that Voyager carries “a kind of time capsule, intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials.” “Voyager’s message is conveyed by a phonograph cylinder, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disc containing sounds and images selected to depict the diversity of life and culture on Earth.” Included in the album are Chuck Berry’s brilliant song, “Johnny B. Goode.”

In the vast vacuum of space, it was certainly unlikely that the craft would crash into anything. They’ll keep moving forward, they’ll keep going. I asked Cummings whether the mission might continue its journey forever, perhaps billions of years.

“I will,” he said.