Voyager 1 is charged with exploring regions beyond the planets of our solar system. It is currently 24 billion kilometers away, which is approximately 6.5 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto. Outside the Sun’s protective magnetic field, you are constantly blasted by cosmic rays and interstellar radiation in interstellar space. This is the farthest any human-made spacecraft has ever traveled.
Voyager 1 has provided fascinating information about cosmic rays, magnetic fields, and other aspects of the interstellar medium despite the fact that it is now almost 45 years old and its power reserves are decreasing. So it was odd when, one day, the signals from Voyager 1 were… peculiar. Although NASA experts hurried at the moment to determine what was wrong with Voyager 1, it took them months to discover the answer. And it remains unclear exactly what transpired. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes and ask: Can you solve the Voyager 1 mystery? Imagine you are a NASA scientist. You log into your computer for the day and begin perusing Voyager 1’s telemetry data. Voyager 1 transmits system status updates, indicating whether or not everything is operating normally. It currently takes 22 hours for a signal from Voyager 1 to reach Earth, so communication between you and the spacecraft you are directing is somewhat sluggish.
Currently, sending SMS is more comparable to writing letters. However, something is wrong today. The information supplied to you is gibberish. Long strings of 0’s or 377’s replace specific data describing what Voyager 1’s thrusters are doing and what orientation it perceives itself to be in. The information is incomprehensible. It implies that Voyager is doing impossible actions and pointing in impossible directions. Yes, you just received a signal from Voyager 1 — you rapidly check your computer once again. Therefore, its antenna must be aimed at you as it always has been. It cannot be pointing in the illogical directions it claims, or else you would not be receiving any signal. Not only are you receiving the signal, but it is also of the same strength, indicating that its direction has not altered. And, ping, the most recent scientific data from Voyager 1 arrives on your PC.
Interestingly, this is entirely normal. Voyager 1 has had to turn off five of its eleven scientific instruments over the years, and two more have stopped working due to general deterioration, but the remaining four continue to collect data on the interstellar medium, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays. There is no jumbled language here. You inspect its other systems. The power supply of Voyager 1 are a little low, but that is to be expected. The plutonium oxide in its three generators has a half-life of 87 years, yet Voyager 1 has been in space for 45 years. It is not surprising that the efficiency has begun to drop. In fact, researchers estimate Voyager 1 will not survive beyond 2025. But that is still a ways off. It does not explain the current situation. After examining its other systems, it has been determined that only one is acting abnormally.
The Attitude Articulation and Control System (AACS). This is one of three computers on Voyager 1, and its purpose is to ensure that the spacecraft’s enormous, 3-meter antenna continues to face Earth. This AACS is no longer transmitting coherent data. You lean back in confusion. The situation is not as dire as you may have anticipated, but it is nonetheless concerning. It’s similar like receiving mail from a postman who greets you each morning and then, for some reason, begins speaking another language one day. The packages he delivers are identical and have arrived at the same destination. It’s just that the man’s remarks no longer make sense to you.
To add to the oddity, Voyager 1 does not believe there is anything wrong with it. The spaceship is equipped with “safe mode” emergency settings that it can enter if it detects that something is not functioning as it should. Essentially, these involve shutting it down until scientists determine what is wrong. These have not yet been activated. So Voyager 1 believes that all of its systems are operating as intended. The data are provided, and the stage is set. Midway through 2022, NASA engineers were presented with this question. A single error like this may not seem significant, but it indicates that several systems may be experiencing problems. And if that is the case, it could mark the end of the operation.
By assessing the remaining systems and determining that they are normal, you can eliminate some of the more bizarre ideas. No, this is probably not the product of aliens attempting to prank you. Although Voyager 1 carries with it a golden disk containing detailed information about the human race, including images of human biology, the sounds of nature, musical symphonies, and mathematical equations, in the unlikely event that it encounters aliens who are interested in learning about us, it seems odd that aliens would communicate with us in this manner. And no, the physical laws have likely not fallen down.
Voyager 1 has not entered a wormhole that is distorting its location while still transmitting the signal to you. Given that all of the scientific data appears to be producing normal readings, it is far more likely that the issue is within the AACS itself. Four months are spent by scientists and engineers delicately probing and examining Voyager 1, testing theory after theory and attempting to find a solution that won’t cause further damage. They might simply utilize the backup system. It would not be the first time that a new computer had been installed aboard Voyager 1 after the previous one failed. The Voyager 1 is designed with redundancies; this isn’t even the first AACS computer that has been utilized; a prior one malfunctioned some time ago. They also consider leaving things alone. In any case, science data are still being collected. Would the end of the world occur if Voyager 1 continued to transmit distorted messages?
This could be the new normal, except that it suggests a more fundamental issue is being missed. Nevertheless, it would be incredibly spectacular if you could. It turns out that in the hostile, radiation-filled environment of interstellar space, something prompted Voyager to begin sending data back to Earth using the older, malfunctioning AACS computer. Due to the computer’s flaws, the data had become damaged, resulting in the odd figures. Therefore, in this instance, the solution was simple. NASA only needed to request that Voyager resume using the correct computer to resolve the issue. After Voyager 1 took such action, the issue was rectified. In this instance, it was a simple repair.
Voyager 1 is currently an aged vessel. As it progresses into interstellar space, it may face an increasing number of defects. And there is still a lingering mystery: why did it begin utilizing the outdated, malfunctioning computer? As of the creation of this script, NASA is still uncertain of the answer. Unfortunately, several of the Voyager’s technologies are so ancient that their designers have long since retired. Possibly, this is a mystery that will never be completely solved. I hope not however. I hope that Voyager 1 will continue its journey and push the final frontier as far as possible. I believe that science is all about unraveling mysteries. And in order to answer the larger concerns of how the cosmos functions, numerous smaller puzzles must be solved, such as locating and repairing a problem with an exploratory spaceship. While NASA scientists were striving to recover Voyager 1’s data for good reason, we are not always that fortunate on Earth.
