NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently the most distant spacecraft from Earth, has resumed sending science data after a computer problem that occurred in November. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that all four of Voyager 1’s instruments are now back in operation, and meaningful information was first received from the spacecraft in April. The team recently instructed it to begin studying its environment again.
Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 and is currently drifting through interstellar space, the region between star systems. Prior to reaching this area, the spacecraft made significant discoveries, including a thin ring around Jupiter and several of Saturn’s moons. Its instruments are specifically designed to collect data on plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles.
Despite being over 15 billion miles (24.14 kilometers) away from Earth, Voyager 1 is still an important tool for scientists studying our solar system and beyond. Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, is also in interstellar space and is more than 12 billion miles (19.31 kilometers) from Earth. Together, the two Voyagers have provided some of the most valuable information about our solar system’s outer reaches.