![]() Voyager 1 could have been aimed on to Pluto, but exploration of Titan and the rings of Saturn was a primary scientific objective. Two spacecraft were sent on slightly different paths, first to Jupiter and then, with gravity assists, on to Saturn. The original mission of Voyager was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. It was never planned that the Voyagers would visit Pluto. Have any human-made objects ever exited the solar system?īoth Voyagers flew beyond the orbit of Pluto/Neptune in 1989, but neither flew by Pluto, which was elsewhere in its orbit at the time. Voyager 2, which is traveling below the plane of the planets, is expected to enter interstellar space in the coming years. Voyager 1, which is traveling up away from the plane of the planets, passed out of the heliosphere into interstellar space, beyond the bubble of the solar wind, on Aug. That heliosphere is the region influenced by the dynamic properties of the sun that are carried in the solar wind - such as magnetic fields, energetic particles, solar wind plasma, etc. Neither flew by Pluto, which was elsewhere in its orbit at the time.Īnother concept is the heliosphere, which is a bubble around the sun created by the outward flow of the solar wind from the sun and the opposing inward flow of the interstellar wind. The Voyagers passed the orbit of Neptune (which was furthest at the time) in August 1989. That said, Pluto (and sometimes Neptune) is the most distant planet in our planetary system. Shirley, in Encyclopedia of Planetary Science). The gravitational influence of the sun may extend as far as 2 light years. In addition to the planets, moons, asteroids and dust of the planetary system, it includes the distant bodies of the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud, the last extending perhaps as far as 50,000 astronomical units (1 AU = about 93 million miles). ![]() The solar system may be broadly defined as consisting of all those objects that are ultimately governed by the gravitational field of the sun. Where are Voyager 1 and 2 today? How do they compare to other spacecraft on an outbound trajectory? The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth. Engineers expect each spacecraft to continue operating at least one science instrument until around 2025.Įven if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. Voyager 2 will have to start turning science instruments off sooner because it is currently operating one more instrument than Voyager 1. Engineers expect to begin turning off fields and particles science instruments one by one, starting in 2020 for Voyager 2. The Voyager team has chosen to keep operating the instruments that are the most likely to send back key data about the heliosphere and interstellar space - the fields and particles instruments. Heaters and other spacecraft systems have also been turned off one by one as part of power management. Because of this diminishing electrical power, the Voyager team has had to prioritize which instruments to keep on and which to turn off. The radioisotope thermoelectric generator on each spacecraft puts out 4 watts less each year. Voyager 2 is expected to keep its current suite of science instruments on through 2020. Voyager 1 is expected to keep its current suite of science instruments on through 2021. What instruments on the spacecraft are still working and what have been turned off? While you could still see some brighter stars and some of the planets with the cameras, you can actually see these stars and planets better with amateur telescopes on Earth. In addition, it is very dark where the Voyagers are now. Even if mission managers recreated the computers on the ground, reloaded the software onto the spacecraft and were able to turn the cameras back on, it is not clear that they would work. The cameras and their heaters have also been exposed for years to the very cold conditions at the deep reaches of our solar system. The computers on the ground that understand the software and analyze the images do not exist anymore. Mission managers removed the software from both spacecraft that controls the camera. ![]() After Voyager 1 took its last image (the "Solar System Family Portrait" in 1990), the cameras were turned off to save power and memory for the instruments expected to detect the new charged particle environment of interstellar space. It is possible for the cameras to be turned on, but it is not a priority for Voyager's Interstellar Mission.
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