The 45-year-old Voyager 1 sent back confusing information. What did it encounter in deep space?

According to NASA, the data sent back by Voyager 1, the AI ​​messenger of mankind that is flying out of the solar system, is somewhat disordered, and the readings do not correctly reflect the actual current status of the spacecraft. This spacecraft, the farthest from humans, has been flying alone in space for 45 years. What exactly has it encountered?

Now, let’s take a look at its general trajectory over the past few decades, as well as what’s happening now and where it’s headed in the future.

Has Voyager 1 left the solar system?

This unmanned probe, launched in 1977, is 23.3 billion kilometers away from us and is still flying out of the solar system at a speed of 16.9 kilometers per second. Some say it has already flown out of the solar system, while others think it is too early, because there are several different views on where the boundary of the solar system is.

One view is that the boundary is based on the orbit of Neptune, because Neptune is the largest planet farthest from the sun, and no other large planets have been discovered outside this orbit. The orbit of Neptune is about 30 AU from the sun. AU is an astronomical unit, and 1 AU is equal to the average distance from the sun to the earth, about 150 million kilometers.

Voyager 1 flew past the orbit of Neptune in the late 1980s and did a romantic thing on Valentine's Day in 1990. It looked back and took a photo of us from 6.4 billion kilometers away from Earth.

This photo is considered shocking. It is difficult to find the shadow of the earth in the vast space in the image sent back, because the earth is no bigger than a speck of dust from 6.4 billion kilometers away, with only 0.12 pixels and a faint light spot. This photo is called the "Pale Blue Dot". (Picture above)

People are shocked and reflective because on this particle that seems smaller than dust, there live more than 7 billion people who are fighting for survival or interests there, and the world is full of plagues and wars.

This is the last photo sent back by Voyager 1, which never looked back and headed off into the distance.

Beyond Neptune is the Kuiper Belt, an icy world very far from the sun, where there are many icy asteroids, some only meters in size, and some dwarf planets, of which Pluto is the largest. These are still celestial bodies in the solar system, so it seems a bit wrong to say that they are outside the solar system.

Another view is that the boundary of the solar system is at the top of the solar wind, also known as the heliosphere, which is the farthest point where the charged particles from the sun are blown. The charged particle flow thrown out by the solar corona forms a spherical bubble surrounding the sun. This ball is very large, with a radius of about 120AU and a thickness of about 0.5AU.

On November 7, 2011, Voyager 1 was about 119.488 AU away from us, and was believed to have reached the transition zone at the edge of the solar system, where the solar wind has become very slow. At this time, Voyager 1's speed was 17.062 kilometers per second, and it took more than 16 hours for the information it sent to be transmitted back to Earth at the speed of light.

At 2:00 p.m. local time on September 12, 2013, NASA officially confirmed through a press conference that Voyager 1 had left the solar system and entered interstellar space. The basis for this was that the solar wind detected by Voyager 1 was getting slower and slower, the particles coming from the sun were getting fewer and fewer, and the particles coming from the interstellar were getting more and more, until eventually there were no solar particles left but only interstellar particles.

Some people in the scientific community believe that this is a symbol of separation from the solar system, but others believe that the solar system should be bounded by the Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is a scientific hypothesis that a dense spherical body surrounds the solar system, with a radius of 1 light year, or more than 60,000 AU.

This sphere with a radius of 1 light year is the gravitational influence range of the sun. Inside this sphere is a dark, snowy world known as the home of comets. Because it is far away from the sun, it is extremely cold and dark. When the solar system was formed in the early years, the water vapor blown here by the stellar wind condensed into a mixture of large and small ice, snow and dust, which are called dirty snowballs. These are comet nuclei.

There are more than one trillion comet nuclei in the Oort cloud. Some of them grow bigger and bigger like snowballs, while others break into pieces after collisions. When they are ejected out of their orbits by the gravitational resonance of some large celestial bodies, they may be attracted by the gravity of the sun. When they are close to the sun and observed by humans on Earth, the sun's light and heat have evaporated these dirty snowballs into comas and tails. They will sweep across the sky like a giant broom, and when observed by people, they are called comets.

This range is generally considered to be the final edge of the solar system. It will take more than 17,000 years for Voyager 1 to fly out of this edge at its current speed. In this sense, it is still a long way to go for Voyager 1 to fly out of the solar system.

Humans have long stopped operating Voyager 1.

NASA's last operation of Voyager 1 was on November 28, 2017. This was because NASA engineers discovered from the information sent back by Voyager 1 at the time that its main engine showed signs of weakening function. In order to correct this problem, they issued an order to start the auxiliary engine that had been dormant for more than 30 years.

At that time, Voyager 1 was more than 20 billion kilometers away from the Earth, and it took more than 19 hours for the command to be delivered to Voyager 1. It took more than 38 hours to go there and back. The information returned showed that Voyager 1 accurately executed the command and reported that the four auxiliary engines were working normally.

This was the longest mission of a man-made object ever remotely controlled by humans. Since then, Voyager 1 has never been controlled again. It has been flying out of the solar system completely relying on inertia and a long-determined course. Its battery power is running low, and in the dark and distant space, it cannot be replenished by solar energy, so the various instruments it carries gradually cannot work.

In fact, since 2007, in order to save electricity, Voyager 1 has begun to gradually shut down scientific instruments and stop various experimental activities, namely: in 2007, the plasma subsystem was stopped; in 2008, the planetary radio astronomy experiment was stopped; in 2010, the scanning platform and ultraviolet spectrometer observations were stopped; in 2015, the data tape drive was stopped; in 2016, the gyroscope was stopped; in 2020, scientific instruments began to be shut down.

However, some basic instruments of Voyager 1 are still working, and they are still faithfully sending data information every moment to report its flight status and new things it encounters. On the Voyager 1 dedicated page of NASA's website, real-time data of the Voyager is jumping every second, as shown in the screenshot just below:

Therefore, the message of the traveler is now only sent back but not returned. The masters of the earth can passively receive the information sent back by it, but it is difficult to give it instructions. In the dark deep space full of risks, this loyal human messenger can only move forward and forward, flying to the unknown distance. How far he can fly depends entirely on luck.

The information transmission from Voyager 1 will come to an abrupt end in 2025. This is because the power of Voyager 1 will be completely exhausted in this year, and it will be unable to start any instruments. This kite will be completely disconnected and unknown to people, and people will never get any news from it again.

But Voyager 1 will not stop there. It will still fly towards the direction of Centaurus. After more than 70,000 years, it will reach the nearest star system to us, the Proxima Centauri system, 4.22 light-years away. As a human messenger, it will see what is there and then continue to fly towards the center of the Milky Way.

In the high vacuum of space, the body of Voyager 1 will not oxidize, so as long as there is no accident, it can theoretically exist for more than 1 billion years. It carries a piece of high-purity U-238, a radioactive element that decays into plutonium-239 with a half-life of 4.17 billion years. Therefore, when Voyager 1 is lucky enough to encounter aliens and is captured by them, the age of this human messenger can be calculated from the decay of this piece of uranium-238.

The aliens can also read the coordinates of the solar system and the Earth, as well as the appearance of the Earth and humans, the living conditions of various races, and information about the Earth's ecology from the golden record carried by Voyager 1. When these aliens find humans according to the guidance of Voyager 1, we will know what this AI ancestor sent by humans has experienced after leaving human sight.

However, it is difficult to say whether humans will still exist at that time, or whether they have migrated to some other planet.

So, what is happening to Voyager 1 now?

NASA released a statement saying that Voyager 1 currently appears to be operating normally, but "the readings of the probe's Attitude Articulation and Control System (AACS) do not reflect what is actually happening on board."

The so-called AACS is a device that controls the direction of Voyager 1. In addition, it can also allow the high-gain antenna to accurately point to the earth, so that data can be sent to the owner in a timely manner. Now all signs indicate that the AACS is still working and the high-gain antenna is also accurately pointed to the earth, otherwise the information it sends back cannot be received.

But the telemetry data it sent back looked more like randomly generated data, and failed to reflect the true state of the spacecraft. According to the intelligent setting, if there is a malfunction, the system will put the spacecraft into "safe mode", so that the engineers of the mission team will have time to diagnose the problem. But Voyager 1 did not enter "safe mode", which puzzled the engineers.

Could it be that Voyager 1 has grown old and has developed Alzheimer's disease? But this is obviously impossible, because as mentioned before, it can fly in space for 1 billion years without breaking down, and it is still a baby now. But from another perspective, its energy is almost exhausted. If you want the horse to run but don't give it grass to eat, it is reasonable for it to have a little temper, right?

Currently, the engineering team has been closely monitoring the signal. Perhaps if they find a problem, they will initiate the final correction for Voyager 1. Voyager 1 is now 23.3 billion kilometers away from the Earth. It takes 20 hours and 33 minutes for the speed of light to cross this space, so it takes more than 21 hours for each piece of information from Voyager 1 to be transmitted back.

The mission team has long been accustomed to this delay effect, and when they decide to correct Voyager 1, the instructions they send will take more than 21 hours to arrive. But this is not a problem, if necessary, these "parents" who have carefully cared for Voyager 1 for decades will be happy to help their children through the difficulties.

As a bystander, I can't do anything to help Voyager 1. I can only silently wish it a safe journey. What do you think about this? Welcome to discuss, thank you for reading.

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