voyager 2 entfernung live

• The Contents
• The Making of
• Where Are They Now
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Q & A with Ed Stone

golden record

Where are they now.

• frequently asked questions
• Q&A with Ed Stone

NASA’s Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

NASA Mission Update: Voyager 2 Communications Pause

NASA's Voyager Will Do More Science With New Power Strategy

Edward Stone Retires After 50 Years as NASA Voyager's Project Scientist

Voyager, NASA's Longest-Lived Mission, Logs 45 Years in Space

Voyager 1 distance from earth, voyager 1 distance from sun, voyager 1 one-way light time, voyager 1 cosmic ray data, voyager 2 distance from the earth, voyager 2 distance from the sun, voyager 2 one-way light time, voyager 2 cosmic ray data, what's happening now.

Since November 2023, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady radio signal to Earth, but the signal does not contain usable data.

Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS).

The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency's interstellar explorers.

Download the Voyager 40th Anniversary posters.

NASA’s Voyager 2 Probe Enters Interstellar Space

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA’s Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.

Members of NASA’s Voyager team will discuss the findings at a news conference at 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. PST) today at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. The news conference will stream live on the agency’s website .

Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1 , crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

The most compelling evidence of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment ( PLS ), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause. Until recently, the space surrounding Voyager 2 was filled predominantly with plasma flowing out from our Sun. This outflow, called the solar wind, creates a bubble – the heliosphere – that envelopes the planets in our solar system. The PLS uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind. The PLS aboard Voyager 2 observed a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles on Nov. 5. Since that date, the plasma instrument has observed no solar wind flow in the environment around Voyager 2, which makes mission scientists confident the probe has left the heliosphere.

“Working on Voyager makes me feel like an explorer, because everything we’re seeing is new,” said John Richardson, principal investigator for the PLS instrument and a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Even though Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, it did so at a different place and a different time, and without the PLS data. So we’re still seeing things that no one has seen before.”

In addition to the plasma data, Voyager’s science team members have seen evidence from three other onboard instruments – the cosmic ray subsystem, the low energy charged particle instrument and the magnetometer – that is consistent with the conclusion that Voyager 2 has crossed the heliopause. Voyager’s team members are eager to continue to study the data from these other onboard instruments to get a clearer picture of the environment through which Voyager 2 is traveling.

“There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Together, the two Voyagers provide a detailed glimpse of how our heliosphere interacts with the constant interstellar wind flowing from beyond. Their observations complement data from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer ( IBEX ), a mission that is remotely sensing that boundary. NASA also is preparing an additional mission – the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe ( IMAP ), due to launch in 2024 – to capitalize on the Voyagers’ observations.

“Voyager has a very special place for us in our heliophysics fleet,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “Our studies start at the Sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches. To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun’s influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory.”

While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have not yet left the solar system, and won’t be leaving anytime soon. The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud , a collection of small objects that are still under the influence of the Sun’s gravity. The width of the Oort Cloud is not known precisely, but it is estimated to begin at about 1,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and to extend to about 100,000 AU. One AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly 30,000 years to fly beyond it.

The Voyager probes are powered using heat from the decay of radioactive material, contained in a device called a radioisotope thermal generator ( RTG ). The power output of the RTGs diminishes by about four watts per year, which means that various parts of the Voyagers, including the cameras on both spacecraft, have been turned off over time to manage power.

“I think we’re all happy and relieved that the Voyager probes have both operated long enough to make it past this milestone,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “This is what we've all been waiting for. Now we’re looking forward to what we’ll be able to learn from having both probes outside the heliopause.”

Voyager 2 launched in 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1, and both have traveled well beyond their original destinations. The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn. However, as the mission continued, additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible. As the spacecraft flew across the solar system, remote-control reprogramming was used to endow the Voyagers with greater capabilities than they possessed when they left Earth. Their two-planet mission became a four-planet mission. Their five-year lifespans have stretched to 41 years, making Voyager 2 NASA’s longest running mission.

The Voyager story has impacted not only generations of current and future scientists and engineers, but also Earth's culture, including film, art and music. Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record of Earth sounds, pictures and messages. Since the spacecraft could last billions of years, these circular time capsules could one day be the only traces of human civilization.

Voyager’s mission controllers communicate with the probes using NASA’s Deep Space Network ( DSN ), a global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft. The DSN consists of three clusters of antennas in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia.

The Voyager Interstellar Mission is a part of NASA’s Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL built and operates the twin Voyager spacecraft. NASA’s DSN, managed by JPL, is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency, operates both the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of the DSN, and the Parkes Observatory, which NASA has been using to downlink data from Voyager 2 since Nov. 8.

For more information about the Voyager mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

More information about NASA’s Heliophysics missions is available online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/sunearth

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected]

Dwayne Brown / Karen Fox NASA Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 301-286-6284 [email protected] / [email protected]

Related Terms

• Voyager Program

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NASA Mission Update: Voyager 2 Communications Pause

Once the spacecraft’s antenna is realigned with Earth, communications should resume.

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Voyager 1 and 2: The Interstellar Mission

An image of Neptune taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

NASA has beautiful photos of every planet in our solar system. We even have images of faraway Neptune , as you can see in the photo above.

Neptune is much too distant for an astronaut to travel there with a camera. So, how do we have pictures from distant locations in our solar system? Our photographers were two spacecraft, called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2!

An artist’s rendering of one of the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Earth in 1977. Their mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn —and beyond to the outer planets of our solar system. This was a big task. No human-made object had ever attempted a journey like that before.

The two spacecraft took tens of thousands of pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. The pictures from Voyager 1 and 2 allowed us to see lots of things for the first time. For example, they captured detailed photos of Jupiter's clouds and storms, and the structure of Saturn's rings .

Image of storms on Jupiter taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

Voyager 1 and 2 also discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io , and much more. Voyager 2 also took pictures of Uranus and Neptune. Together, the Voyager missions discovered 22 moons.

Since then, these spacecraft have continued to travel farther away from us. Voyager 1 and 2 are now so far away that they are in interstellar space —the region between the stars. No other spacecraft have ever flown this far away.

Where will Voyager go next?

Watch this video to find out what's beyond our solar system!

Both spacecraft are still sending information back to Earth. This data will help us learn about conditions in the distant solar system and interstellar space.

The Voyagers have enough fuel and power to operate until 2025 and beyond. Sometime after this they will not be able to communicate with Earth anymore. Unless something stops them, they will continue to travel on and on, passing other stars after many thousands of years.

Each Voyager spacecraft also carries a message. Both spacecraft carry a golden record with scenes and sounds from Earth. The records also contain music and greetings in different languages. So, if intelligent life ever find these spacecraft, they may learn something about Earth and us as well!

A photo of the golden record that was sent into space on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More about our universe!

Where does interstellar space begin?

Searching for other planets like ours

Play Galactic Explorer!

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Lesezeit: 2 min

Seit 1977 sind die "Voyager"-Sonden im All unterwegs, weiter von der Erde entfernt als jedes andere menschengemachte Objekt. Zuletzt herrschte Funkstille mit einer der beiden. Nun gibt es wieder ein Lebenszeichen.

Von Susanne Herresthal

Seit dem 20. August 1977 ist die Raumsonde Voyager 2 im Weltraum unterwegs, inzwischen 20 Milliarden Kilometer von der Erde entfernt, und erforscht die äußeren Ränder des Sonnensystems. Es dauert mehr als 18 Stunden, bis ein Signal aus dieser Entfernung die Erde erreicht. Doch seit dem 21. Juli 2023 herrschte Funkstille: Durch einen Fehler im Raumflugkontrollzentrum der Nasa wurde die Antenne von Voyager 2 unbeabsichtigt um zwei Grad an der Erde vorbei ausgerichtet. Seither sendet die Sonde an den Satellitenschüsseln am Erdboden vorbei, auch Signale von der Erde empfängt sie nicht mehr.

Nun gibt es immerhin ein Lebenszeichen von ihr. Wie die Nasa am Dienstag mitteilte, konnte ein Trägersignal von Voyager 2 bei einer Routineüberprüfung im Rahmen des Deep Space Network (DSN) - eines weltweiten Netzes von Raumkommunikationsstationen - aufgespürt werden, quasi der Hintergrund, auf dem die Sonde ihre Daten übermittelt. Da die Sonde falsch ausgerichtet ist, ist das Signal zu schwach, um Informationen daraus zu gewinnen. Aber man weiß jetzt, dass die Sonde noch aktiv ist und sich auf ihrer erwarteten Flugbahn befindet.

Der Kontakt wird von begrenzter Dauer sein

Voyager 2 flog bereits an Jupiter, Saturn und Uranus vorbei. Bis heute ist sie die einzige Sonde, die jemals dem blauen Eisriesen Neptun nahekam. Mit an Bord ist auch die berühmte goldene Schallplatte - eine Datenplatte mit Bild- und Audioinformationen, die als Botschaft an etwaiges außerirdisches Leben dienen soll. Neben Voyager 2 gibt es die identisch aufgebaute Schwestersonde Voyager 1 , die 16 Tage später auf einer anderen Flugbahn ihre Mission startete. Nur sie hat es noch tiefer ins All geschafft als Voyager 2 .

Mit dem Bedienfehler ist nun nicht alles verloren: In regelmäßigen Abständen richtet sich Voyager 2 wieder selbständig zur Erde aus. Doch dies geschieht das nächste Mal erst Mitte Oktober. So lange möchte die Nasa nicht warten und versucht nun mit Hilfe der Canberra-Antenne im Deep Space Network der Sonde den Befehl zu übermitteln, ihre eigene Antenne wieder zu drehen.

Auch wenn der Kontakt zu Voyager 2 wiederhergestellt werden kann, ist dies jedoch von begrenzter Dauer. Die Radionuklidbatterien liefern immer weniger Strom. Pro Jahr produzieren die Sonden etwa vier Watt weniger Leistung. Nach und nach werden Forschungsinstrumente abgeschaltet werden müssen, bis schließlich gar keine wissenschaftlichen Daten mehr gesammelt werden können. Nasa-Ingenieure gehen davon aus, dass dies 2026 beginnen wird. Etwa von 2036 an werden die Voyager -Sonden die Reichweite des Deep Space Network verlassen haben. Spätestens dann herrscht Stille.

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Vor 40 Jahren schickte die Nasa zwei Raumsonden ins All - im Gepäck: ein Rätsel für Außerirdische. Als "Voyager 1" und "Voyager 2" Jupiter und Saturn erreichten, galt die Mission bereits als Sensation. Und dann flogen die beiden einfach weiter. Bis heute.

Lesen Sie mehr zum Thema

Voyager 2 Enters Final Planetary Encounter

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft today entered the observatoryphase of its flyby of Neptune, signaling the beginning of its final planetary encounter after nearly 12 years of exploring the outer solar system.

Voyager mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will now be tracking the spacecraft around the clock as Voyager begins taking systematic images of Neptune and sending back about 50 pictures day.

"Now that we've entered the observatory phase we'll be taking about six images every three hours to study changes in the atmosphere from rotation to rotation," said Dr. Ellis Miner, Voyager deputy project scientist.

Signals from Voyager 2 marking the beginning of the observatory phase were received at 3:40 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. This official start of the Neptune encounter places Voyager at the top of the priority list of spacecraft being tracked by the NASA/JPL Deep Space Network. Before today, Voyager had to compete with other projects for DSN coverage. During the observatory phase, the spacecraft will be monitored at regular intervals by more than one antenna at each of the DSN sites in California, Spain and Australia.

In addition to taking images of the planet, Voyager 2 will also be making systematic ultraviolet observations of Neptune looking for any auroral activity and escaping gases. Calibrations of the spacecraft's instruments will also be done in preparation for critical near-encounter observations.

In observations of Neptune made by Voyager 2 in late 1988 and January of 1989, scientists saw bright spot in the southern hemisphere of the planet. Since January, that spot has dimmed and larger dark area has been seen in the images. Recently, the bright spot has begun to brighten again and other spots are becoming apparent. Neptune's atmosphere has also revealed regions of dark banding near its southern pole and similar banding has been seen north of the planet's equator.

Voyager's observatory phase ends and its far encounter phase starts on Aug. 6, 1989.

The near-encounter phase of the mission includes Voyager's closest approach to Neptune at 9 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Aug. 24, 1989, when the spacecraft passes just 4,850 kilometers (3,000 miles) from the planet's cloud tops. Five hours later, the spacecraft will fly about 39,000 kilometers (24,000 miles) from the planet's major moon Triton.

Voyager 2 is now 117 million kilometers (73 million miles) from Neptune. The Neptune flyby will be Voyager 2's fourth and final planetary encounter before the spacecraft heads out of the solar system to explore interstellar space.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 have encountered Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 went on to fly by Uranus in January 1986 while Voyager 1 continues its trek out of the solar system.

Now 4.271 billion kilometers (2.654 billion miles) from Earth, Voyager 2 is so far away that data radioed at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) take nearly four hours to reach Earth. Voyager's images are being recorded on the spacecraft's tape recorders and will be played back to Earth beginning Tuesday morning.

The Voyager project is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications.

Voyager 2 Trajectory through the Solar System

• Released Thursday, August 31, 2017
• Visualizations by:
• Tom Bridgman

This visualization tracks the trajectory of the Voyager 2 spacecraft through the solar system. Launched on August 20, 1977, it was one of two spacecraft sent to visit the giant planets of the outer solar system. Like Voyager 1, Voyager 2 flew by Jupiter and Saturn, but the Voyager 2 mission was extended to fly by Uranus and Neptune before being directed out of the solar system. To fit the 40 year history of the mission into a short visualization, the pacing of time accelerates through most of the movie, starting at about 5 days per second at the beginning and speeding up to about 11 months per second after the planet flybys are past. The termination shock and heliopause are the 'boundaries' created when the plasma between the stars interacts with the plasma flowing outward from the Sun. They are represented with simple grid models and oriented so their 'nose' is pointed in the direction (Right Ascension = 17h 24m, declination = 17 degrees south) represented by more recent measurements from other missions.

Visualization centered on the Voyager 2 trajectory through the solar system.

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Check out Voyager at NASA/JPL for more information.

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Opening view of Earth orbit looking outward to the rest of the solar system.

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Voyager 2 (and 1) cross the orbit of Mars, slightly above the ecliptic plane to avoid the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter.

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The camera moves out ahead of the Voyagers for a view back at the inner solar system.

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Voyager 2 just after the Jupiter flyby on July 9, 1979.

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Voyager 2 just after the Saturn flyby on August 26, 1981.

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Voyager 2 just before the Uranus flyby on January 24, 1986.

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Voyager 2 just after the Neptune flyby on August 25, 1989.

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Using Neptune for a gravity-assist, Voyager 2 is directed below the plane of the solar system and continues outward.

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Voyager 2 crosses the termination shock around May of 2006.

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Voyager 2 crosses the heliopause.

A slightly sped-up version of the Voyager 2 visualization above, reducing the time for the Voyagers to cross the asteroid belt.

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• Planets & Moons
• Planetary Science
• Solar System

Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

• Tom Bridgman  (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
• Genna Duberstein  (USRA)
• Scott Wiessinger  (USRA)
• Kathalina Tran  (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)

Project support

• Laurence Schuler  (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
• Ian Jones  (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Release date

This page was originally published on Thursday, August 31, 2017. This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:05 AM EST.

• Voyager @ 40
• Voyager Retrospective

Datasets used in this visualization

Planetary ephemerides SPICE kernel

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Hubble’s Brand New Image of Jupiter

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• Wo endet unser Sonnensystem? Das Voyager-Update.

Wo endet unser Sonnensystem?

Das voyager-update.

Harald Lesch feiert die beiden Voyager-Sonden, die seit über 40 Jahren unterwegs sind. Aber haben Sie damit wirklich das Sonnensystem schon verlassen? Welche Grenze liegt noch vor ihnen? Und welches Schicksal erwartet sie dahinter?

Voyager 1 und 2 sind die menschengemachten Objekte, die sich am weitesten von der Erde entfernt haben. Seit über 40 Jahren rasen sie mit 60.000 Stundenkilometern ins Weltall hinaus. Ein Funksignal von der Erde braucht mittlerweile fast einen Tag, um sie zu erreichen. Seit 2012 durchfliegt Voyager 1 die Plasmaströme des interstellaren Raums, seit 2018 auch Voyager 2. Aber haben Sie damit wirklich das Sonnensystem schon verlassen? Welche Grenze liegt noch vor ihnen? Und welches Schicksal erwartet sie dahinter?

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Harald Lesch zum Thema Universum

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Die großen Themen der Astrophysik präsentiert von Professor Harald Lesch: Wissenschaftsdokus über die aktuelle Forschung und Wissenschaftsgeschichte mit einem „Schuss“ Philosophie

Frag den Lesch - Wenn sich Naturgesetze ändern  

"Wieso glauben wir eigentlich, dass sich das Universum stetig verändert, die Naturgesetze jedoch unveränderlich sind?" So lautete die naheliegende Frage eines Zuschauers.

Frag den Lesch - Mit Voyager durch die Milchstraße  

Als 1977 die Sonden Voyager 1 und Voyager 2 auf ihre Reisen ins Universum geschickt wurden, konnte man nur hoffen, dass sie auch heute immer noch wertvolle Daten senden würden.

Frag den Lesch - Suche nach dem Mittelpunkt des Universums  

Die Frage eines Zuschauers veranlasst Harald Lesch zu einer Gratwanderung zwischen Astrophysik und Philosophie: Wenn sich das Universum ausdehnt, wo hinein dehnt es sich dann aus?

Terra X - Dunkle Materie - Keine Gammastrahlung!  

Woraus besteht der Stoff, der Galaxien zusammenhält? Jetzt gibt es neue Messungen. Aber die Ergebnisse könnten ΛCDM, unser Modell vom Kosmos, mal wieder zum Wanken bringen.

Leschs Kosmos - Space Race 2.0 - Was passiert im All?  

Immer mehr Nationen drängen in den Weltraum. Was sind die Ziele, wer macht das Rennen, und finden wir endlich außerirdisches Leben?

Mehr Lesch & Co

Terra X - Alle Videos  

Wissenswertes aus Naturwissenschaft und Technik: kompetent, verständlich und unterhaltsam präsentiert von Professor Harald Lesch und „Co-Protagonist*innen“.

Terra X - 7 außerirdische Gründe  

Mal ehrlich, wenn es da draußen Aliens gäbe, hätten sie uns doch schon längst kontaktiert! Oder? Gibt es Gründe, warum Außerirdische uns lieber meiden?

Terra X - Wie misst man das Gewicht einer Galaxie?  

Wie wiegen wir kosmische Objekte? Dazu hat die Astronomie einige überraschende Tricks auf Lager!

Terra X - Oppenheimer: Droht wirklich der Weltenbrand?  

General Leslie Groves fragt Oppenheimer vor dem Trinity-Test, wie die Chancen stehen – "Nahe Null" ist die Antwort. Wie realistisch ist der Film "Oppenheimer"?

Terra X - Oppenheimer: Die vergessene Figur  

Christopher Nolans Film "Oppenheimer" bringt die größten Physiker des 20. Jahrhunderts auf die Leinwand. Ob Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein oder Oppenheimer selbst, aber ein Name fehlt!

Terra X - Physiker hassen die Zeit  

Die drei Raumdimensionen sind recht einfach zu verstehen: Oben-unten, vor-zurück, rechts-links. Aber vierte Dimension, die Zeit, ist oft schwer begreiflich.

Mehr Terra X

Terra X  

Mitreißende Dokus, einzigartige Bilder: Terra X bietet Filme über Geschichte, Abenteuer, Natur und Tiere, Reise und Expeditionen. Wissen zum Mitreden!

Terra X - Terra X-Clips unter Creative Commons-Lizenz  

Alle hier gezeigten Fotos und Videos können nicht über die App, sondern nur über den Webbrowser angeschaut und herunter geladen werden.

Terra X - Terra X plus Schule  

Lebendiges Lernen mit Dokus & Videos aus der ZDF-Wissenswelt passend zum Unterricht für Schüler*innen, Lehrkräfte und Wissbegierige

Terra X - Vulkane und Geisterbäume  

• Deutsche Gebärdensprache

Weitere Mysterien der Erde: Die sagenhafte Farbe der Blauen Grotte, Bäume, die keine Photosynthese betreiben und dennoch wachsen, sowie eine Fliege, die mühelos auf Tauchgang geht.

Die große Terra X-Show - Die große Terra X-Show  

"Die große 'Terra X'-Show" feiert spektakuläre Höchstleistungen. Ob Surfer Sebastian Steudtner, der sich in Monsterwellen stürzt, oder Superhirne, die Potenzen im Kopf rechnen.

Terra X - Springfluten und Polsprünge  

Geheimnisvolle Kräfte, die unsere Erde beeinflussen: Wellen, die flussaufwärts brechen, und zarte Schmetterlinge, die wie von Geisterhand gelenkt bis zu 4000 Kilometer bewältigen.

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Voyager 2: An iconic spacecraft that's still exploring 45 years on

The interstellar vagabond continues to explore the cosmos along with its twin, Voyager 1.

Voyager 2 as the backup

Jupiter and saturn flyby, uranus and neptune flyby, voyager 2's interstellar adventure, voyager 2's legacy, additional information.

Voyager 2, was the first of two twin probes NASA sent to investigate the outer planets of our solar system. 

The probe was launched aboard a Titan IIIE-Centaur from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41 (previously Launch Complex 41) on Aug. 20, 1977, its twin spacecraft Voyager 1 was launched about two weeks later on Sept. 5. NASA planned for the Voyager spacecraft to take advantage of an alignment of the outer planets that takes place only every 176 years. The alignment would allow both probes to swing from one planet to the next, with a gravity boost to help them along the way.

While Voyager 1 focused on Jupiter and Saturn , Voyager 2 visited both those planets and also ventured to Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2's mission to those last two planets would be humanity's only visit in the 20th century.

Related: Celebrate 45 years of Voyager with these amazing images of our solar system (gallery)

Voyager 2 is now traveling through interstellar space. As of early November 2018, NASA announced that Voyager 2 had crossed the outer edge of our solar system ( Voyager 1 crossed the boundary into interstellar space in 2012. ) Voyager 2 is now approximately 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away from Earth and counting!  

Although there was not enough money in Voyager 2's budget to guarantee it would still work when flying past Uranus and Neptune, its trajectory was designed to go past those planets anyway. If the spacecraft were still working after Saturn, NASA could try to take pictures of the other planets.

Voyager 2 was ready as a backup for Voyager 1. If Voyager 1 failed when taking pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, NASA was prepared to alter Voyager 2's path to follow Voyager 1's trajectory. It would cut off the Uranus and Neptune option, but still, preserve the possibility of capturing images.

The backup plan was never executed, though, because Voyager 1 went on to make many discoveries at Jupiter and Saturn, working well enough for NASA to carry out its original plans for Voyager 2.

Voyager 2 reached Jupiter in 1979, two years after launching from Cape Canaveral. Since Voyager 1 had just gone through the system four months earlier, Voyager 2's arrival allowed NASA to take valuable comparison shots of Jupiter and its moons. It captured changes in the Great Red Spot and also resolved some of the moon's surfaces in greater detail.

Voyager 2 took pictures of many of Jupiter's satellites. Among its most spectacular findings were pictures from the icy moon Europa . Voyager 2 snapped detailed photos of the icy moon's cracks from 128,000 miles (205,996 km) away and revealed no change in elevation anywhere on the moon's surface.

Proving that moons are abundant around the outer planets, Voyager 2 happened to image Adrastea, a small moon of Jupiter, only months after Voyager 1 found two other Jupiter moons, Thebe and Metis. Adrastea is exceptionally small, only about 19 miles (30.5 kilometers) in diameter at the smallest estimate.

Next in line was Saturn. Voyager 2  became the third spacecraft to visit Saturn when it arrived at its closest point to the ringed planet on Aug. 26, 1981, and took hundreds of pictures of the planet, its moons and its rings . Suspecting that Saturn might be circled by many ringlets, scientists conducted an experiment. They watched the star Delta Scorpii for nearly two and a half hours as it passed through the plane of the rings. As expected, the star's flickering light revealed ringlets as small as 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter. 

Voyager 2's made its closest approach to Uranus on Jan. 24, 1986, becoming the first spacecraft to visit the ice giant. The probe made several observations of the planet, noting that the south pole was facing the sun and that its atmosphere is about 85% hydrogen and 15% helium. 

Additionally, Voyager 2 discovered rings around Uranus, 10 new moons and a magnetic field that, oddly, was 55 degrees off the planet's axis. Astronomers are still puzzling over Uranus' orientation today.

Voyager 2's pictures of the moon Miranda revealed it to be perhaps the strangest moon in the solar system. Its jumbled-up surface appears as though it was pushed together and broken apart several times.

The spacecraft then made it to Neptune , reaching the closest point on Aug. 25, 1989. It skimmed about 3,000 miles from the top of the planet's atmosphere and spotted five new moons as well as four rings around the planet. Remarkably, Voyager 2 is currently the only human-made object to have flown by the intriguing ice giant, according to NASA .

On November 5, 2018, Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause — the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space. At this stage, the probe was 119 astronomical units from the sun. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance, which is about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.) Voyager 1 made the crossing at nearly the same distance, 121.6 AU.

According to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) , Voyager 2 has enough fuel to keep its instruments running until at least 2025. By then, the spacecraft will be approximately 11.4 billion miles (18.4 billion kilometers) away from the sun. 

But Voyager 2 is destined to roam the Milky Way long after its instruments have stopped working.

In about 40,000 years Voyager 2 will pass 1.7 light-years (9.7 trillion miles) from the star Ross 248, according to NASA JPL. The cosmic vagabond will continue its journey through interstellar space and pass 4.3 light-years, (25 trillion miles) from Sirius in about 296,000 years. 

Voyager 2's observations paved the way for later missions. The Cassini spacecraft, which was at Saturn between 2004 and 2017, tracked down evidence of liquid water at the planet's icy moons several decades after the Voyagers initially revealed the possible presence of water. Cassini also mapped the moon, Titan , after the Voyagers took pictures of its thick atmosphere.

Voyager 2's images of Uranus and Neptune also serve as a baseline for current observations of those giant planets. In 2014, astronomers were surprised to see giant storms on Uranus — a big change from when Voyager 2 flew by the planet in 1986. 

To see where Voyager 2 is now you can check out the mission status with resources from NASA . Learn more about the iconic spacecraft with the National Air and Space Museum .  

Bibliography

NASA. In depth: Voyager 2. NASA. Retrieved August 17, 2022, from www.solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-2/in-depth/

NASA. Voyager - mission status. NASA. Retrieved August 17, 2022, from www.voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

NASA. Voyager - the interstellar mission. NASA. Retrieved August 17, 2022, from www. voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/interstellar-mission

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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• Object Information
• Planetarium

Voyager 1 live position and data

This page shows Voyager 1 location and other relevant astronomical data in real time. The celestial coordinates, magnitude, distances and speed are updated in real time and are computed using high quality data sets provided by the JPL Horizons ephemeris service (see acknowledgements for details). The sky map shown in the background represents a rectangular portion of the sky 60x40 arcminutes wide. By comparison the diameter of the full Moon is about 30 arcmins, so the full horizontal extent of the map is approximately 2 full Moons wide. Depending on the device you are using, the map can be dragged horizondally or vertically using the mouse or touchscreen. The deep sky image in the background is provided by the Digitized Sky Survey ( acknowledgements ).

Current close conjunctions

List of bright objects (stars brighter than magnitude 9.0 and galaxies brighter than magmitude 14.0) close to Voyager 1 (less than 1.5 degrees):

Additional resources

• 15 Days Ephemerides
• Interactive Sky Map (Planetarium)
• Rise & Set Times
• Distance from Earth

Astronomy databases

• The Digitized Sky Survey, a photographic survey of the whole sky created using images from different telescopes, including the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain
• The Hipparcos Star Catalogue, containing more than 100.000 bright stars
• The PGC 2003 Catalogue, containing information about 1 million galaxies
• The GSC 2.3 Catalogue, containing information about more than 2 billion stars and galaxies