Sending a “drunk” signal, what did the NASA spacecraft collide with outside the solar system?-Information Technology

NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft began to emit strange signals from interstellar space, confusing scientists.

The Voyager 1 mission began in 1977, and now this NASA spacecraft has crossed the boundaries of the solar system, what scientists call “interstellar space”. Voyager 1’s current location is 23.3 billion kilometers from Earth.

According to Live Science, while all the “health parameters” sent back show that the spacecraft is still functioning normally, the data it collects in the dark and distant place beyond the solar system. very unusual.

NASA Voyager 1 is wandering in interstellar space – Photo: NASA

Sometimes the NASA spacecraft seems confused about its position in space, sometimes it suddenly exits safe mode or sounds an alarm.

Dr Suzanne Dodd from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL-Caltech), Voyager 1 project manager and its twin Voyager 2, said: “A mystery like this is equivalent to this. with a “new course” for scientists for this phase of the Voyager mission”.

In fact, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were not originally planned to go out of the solar system, and no one thinks they are still doing well after 45 years and still going far. Currently, both are in an environment with high radiation and many mysteries that no spacecraft has ever explored before.

The anomaly concerns Voyager 1’s AACS system, which keeps the ship and its antennas on track. AACS is working fine, receiving commands smoothly, but sending back to Earth a bunch of “junk” signals.

NASA still doesn’t know what Voyager 1 encountered that confused it so much. This agency targets two theories, one is that the ship is really malfunctioning, the other is that the space it just flew into contains interesting mysteries, things that the ship has not been able to adapt to for the time being.

The Voyager 1 team will continue to investigate to solve it in two ways, either trying to fix the problem, or adapting to it – that’s really a novel condition to accept. The signal from this powerful NASA spacecraft now takes 20 hours and 33 minutes to reach Earth.

Meanwhile, the twin spacecraft Voyager 2 is still operating normally and also calmly wandering between the stars like its brother. NASA hopes to keep these spacecraft operational through 2025.