last voyager 1 picture

Pale Blue Dot at 30: Voyager 1's iconic photo of Earth from space reveals our place in the universe

The photo shows Earth as it truly is — a lonely outpost of life in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos.

Thirty years ago today, humanity got a chance to see itself in a whole new light. 

On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 probe snapped a photo of Earth from 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away. The image shows our home planet as it truly is — a tiny, lonely outpost of life in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos — and became iconic as a result. 

The Voyager 1 team sensed at the time that the " Pale Blue Dot ," as the photo has come to be known, would be an important social document, said planetary scientist Candy Hansen, who served as the experiment representative for the Voyager imaging team and was the first person to set eyes on the Pale Blue Dot photo when it came down to Earth.

Related: Voyager at 40: 40 photos from NASA's epic 'Grand Tour' mission

The Cold War had not yet thawed completely in early 1990. The Pale Blue Dot had the potential to remind folks around the world that we're all in this together, no matter how many nuclear warheads one superpower may be aiming at another, Hansen explained. And the image remains vital today, because its message is timeless, she added.

"Now, we have climate change as an existential threat," Hansen, who now works for the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute, told Space.com. "And we need to remind ourselves again that there's one planet that is hospitable to humans. Even if we colonize the moon or Mars one day, neither one of those bodies is really going to be able to support seven billion of us. So, we need to take care of this planet."

A family portrait

Voyager 1 launched a few weeks after its twin, Voyager 2 , back in 1977. Together, the two probes conducted an unprecedented "grand tour" of the solar system's giant planets, flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 

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The tour was over after the Neptune encounter, which Voyager 2 executed in August 1989. But the two spacecraft kept on flying, out toward the great unknown of interstellar space. Mission team members decided to turn off the two probes' cameras to save precious power during the long journey (and because they probably wouldn't have many chances to photograph interesting things out beyond Neptune anyway).

But Voyager 1 turned around to take one last look at home before closing its eyes. And not just its home planet — its home system. The probe took a "family portrait" series of 60 photos, capturing the sun, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in addition to Earth. (Mercury was too close to the sun to be imaged, and sunlight bouncing around in the camera blocked Mars out.)

The Pale Blue Dot was the brainchild of famed astronomer, science communicator and Voyager imaging team member Carl Sagan , who first proposed snapping Earth with Voyager cameras in 1981 . And Sagan helped popularize the image and its message after the fact, writing a book called "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" (Random House, 1994). 

Earth was one of the last things Voyager 1 saw. The probe took the Pale Blue Dot photo at 0448 GMT on Feb. 14, 1990, just 34 minutes before its cameras were shut off forever. (The very last photos Voyager 1 took, however, were of the sun, Hansen said.)

All of the image data didn't come down to Earth until May 1, 1990, NASA officials wrote in a Pale Blue Dot explainer . Hansen couldn't wait to see our planet through Voyager 1's eyes — and, when she finally got the chance, doing so proved a bit more difficult than she had expected.

"It was actually kind of terrifying, because I didn't see it at first," she said. "Because of that beam of scattered light, it didn't pop out at me immediately. And then I was so afraid that we had missed it, or screwed up the exposure or something. So, it was such a relief when I spotted it."

That beam of scattered light may have briefly stopped Hansen's heart, but it adds a certain poetic flair to the Pale Blue Dot photo. It's almost as if the cosmos threw a spotlight onto our precious little world for a moment, to help us make it out in the abyss.

Related: Earth quiz: Do you really know your planet?

Still exploring

Both Voyagers kept flying long after February 1990. They cruised through the outer solar system and eventually popped free of the sun's sphere of influence into interstellar space.

Voyager 1 accomplished this unprecedented feat in 2012 , and its twin followed suit six years later. And both probes are still going strong. They should have enough power left to continue gathering data about their exotic surroundings through 2024 or so, mission team members have said.

The Voyager program has accomplished amazing things, shedding considerable light on the giant planets and the dark realms far beyond them. (Voyager 2, for example, is still the only spacecraft ever to get up-close looks at Uranus or Neptune.) And the Pale Blue Dot is a unique part of this diverse and layered legacy.

"The Earth picture reaches to our hearts, I would say, and all the rest goes in our heads," Hansen said.

• Photos from NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 probes  
• Voyager 1's historic flyby of Jupiter in photos  
• Voyager 1 spacecraft's road to interstellar space: A photo timeline

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate ), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook . 

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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’pale blue dot’ revisited, jet propulsion laboratory.

For the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic views from the Voyager mission, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is publishing a new version of the image known as the “Pale Blue Dot.”

The updated image uses modern image-processing software and techniques while respecting the intent of those who planned the image. Like the original, the new color view shows Planet Earth as a single, bright blue pixel in the vastness of space. Rays of sunlight scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene, one of which happens to have intersected dramatically with Earth.

The view was obtained on Feb. 14, 1990, just minutes before Voyager 1’s cameras were intentionally powered off to conserve power and because the probe — along with its sibling, Voyager 2 — would not make close flybys of any other objects during their lifetimes. Shutting down instruments and other systems on the two Voyager spacecraft has been a gradual and ongoing process that has helped enable their longevity .

This celebrated Voyager 1 view was part of a series of 60 images designed to produce what the mission called the “Family Portrait of the Solar System.” This sequence of camera-pointing commands returned images of six of the solar system’s planets, as well as the Sun. The Pale Blue Dot view was created using the color images Voyager took of Earth.

The popular name of this view is traced to the title of the 1994 book by Voyager imaging scientist Carl Sagan, who originated the idea of using Voyager’s cameras to image the distant Earth and played a critical role in enabling the family portrait images to be taken.

Additional information about the Pale Blue Dot image is available at:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-blue-dot/

The original Pale Blue Dot and Family Portrait images are available at:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00452

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00451

The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

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

Written by Preston Dyches

Voyager Image Gallery

45 years of voyager i and ii.

Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft inspired the world with pioneering visits to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their journey continues 45 years later as both probes explore interstellar space, the region outside the protective heliosphere created by our Sun. Researchers – some younger than the spacecraft – are now using Voyager data to solve mysteries of our solar system and beyond.

This archival photo shows engineers working on vibration acoustics and pyro shock testing of NASA’s Voyager on Nov. 18, 1976.

NASA’s Voyager 1 acquired this image of a volcanic explosion on Io on March 4, 1979, about 11 hours before the spacecraft’s closest approach to the moon of Jupiter.

This updated version of the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft uses modern image-processing software and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view while attempting to respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images.

This illustrated graphic was made to mark Voyager 1’s entry into interstellar space in 2012. It puts solar system distances in perspective, with the scale bar in astronomical units and each set distance beyond 1 AU (the average distance between the Sun and Earth) representing 10 times the previous distance.

This graphic highlights some of the Voyager mission’s key accomplishments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image details

This graphic provides some of the mission’s key statistics from 2018, when NASA’s Voyager 2 probe exited the heliosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image details

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This Day In History : February 14

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“Pale Blue Dot” photo of Earth is taken

On Valentine's Day, 1990, 3.7 billion miles away from the sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft takes a photograph of Earth. The picture, known as Pale Blue Dot , depicts our planet as a nearly indiscernible speck roughly the size of a pixel.

Launched on September 5, 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were charged with exploring the outer reaches of our solar system. It passed by Jupiter in March of 1979 and Saturn the following year. The gaps between the outer planets are so vast that it was another decade before it passed by Neptune and arrived at the spot where it was to take a series of images of the planets, known as the "Family Portrait" of our solar system.

Of the Family Portrait series, Pale Blue Dot was certainly the most memorable. The furthest image ever taken of Earth, it lent its name to popular astronomer Carl Sagan's 1994 book. Sagan, who advised the Voyager mission and had suggested the photo, wrote the following: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Voyager 1's journey continues. In 1998, it became the most distant human-made object in space, and on August 25, 2012, it left the furthest reaches of the sun's magnetic field and solar winds, becoming the first man-made object in interstellar space. 

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Emily Lakdawalla & Charlene Anderson • Feb 12, 2010

Twenty years since Voyager's last view

On Sunday comes the twentieth anniversary of an iconic image from the Voyager mission: the "Pale Blue Dot" photo of Earth caught in a sunbeam, which was captured by Voyager 1 as part of a Solar System Family Portrait. This panoramic view of our planetary cradle wouldn't have happened without years of advocacy by Planetary Society founder Carl Sagan, whose vision still inspires our organization.

Nothing like it has been done since. There hasn't been the opportunity -- Voyager 1 is the last spacecraft to have departed the solar system with a functional camera. The next one to be in a similar position will be New Horizons . I asked Alan Stern whether the Pluto-bound craft will take a family portrait from its distant perspective. He told me "Absolutely! But because of the bright Sun, we have to be careful for now, so we can't do it until after Pluto. We can however (and soon will-- this summer!) look back to Jupiter and see it and the Galilean satellites from 2+ billion km away near the orbit of Uranus. It should be quite evocative." Indeed it will.

There are several retrospectives on Voyager's solar system family portrait being posted across the Internet today, including this one from JPL and this really neat story from National Public Radio , featuring an interview of Candy Hansen, who was apparently the first person to spot Earth fixed in that sunbeam. Here's one written by the Society's Charlene Anderson a few years ago, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Voyagers' launches.

by Charlene Anderson

This article is reprinted from the September/October 2002 issue of The Planetary Report.

Home. Family. This will be Voyager's enduring legacy: It has changed forever the feelings raised by those words. Through its robotic eyes we have learned to see the solar system as our home. Through its portraits of the planets we know that they are part of our family.

Apollo astronauts showed us a tiny Earth alone in the blackness of space. Now, with these images, Voyager has shown us that Earth is not really alone. Around our parent Sun orbit sibling worlds, companions as we travel through the Galaxy.

These family portraits of the Sun and planets were Voyager's final photographic assignment. Planetary Society President and Voyager Imaging Team member Carl Sagan worked for a decade to get these pictures taken. Between the two Voyager spacecraft, they returned some 67,000 images of the four outer planets and their 56 known moons. Voyager 1 had the slightly easier assignment: It encountered Jupiter in March 1979 and swung by Saturn in November 1980. Then it headed out in search of the heliopause, the edge of our Sun's sphere of magnetic influence, and where the solar wind gives way to the wind from the stars. In August 1989 Voyager 2 flew by Neptune, completing its reconnaissance mission, having visited Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and Uranus in 1986. After passing Neptune, Voyager 2 joined its twin on the way to interstellar space.

The Voyagers had been launched in 1977 to take advantage of a planetary alignment that occurs only once every 176 years. The outer planets were lined up so that a spacecraft could swing from one to another, threading its way past the 4 gas giants in only 12 years. Mission planners at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory could select their paths from among many possible trajectories and targets.

For Voyager 1, they chose to send the spacecraft close by Titan's south pole to obtain close-up data on Saturn's largest moon. Titan's thick nitrogen atmosphere proved to be heavy with complex, carbon-rich organic molecules, and its surface is possibly dotted with lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. For carbon-based lifeforms living in a primarily nitrogen atmosphere - such as ourselves - a world like Titan is well worth a close look.

But to fly close to Titan, the project team had to sacrifice Voyager 1's encounters with Uranus and Neptune or a close-up look at Pluto. Its path around Saturn swung the spacecraft up and out of the ecliptic, the plane defined by Earth's orbit about the Sun. Looking from its Pasadena home on Earth's northern hemisphere, the spacecraft now appears to be coasting above our solar system.

Voyager 1 was chosen to take the family portrait because fewer instruments might be damaged by looking back toward the Sun. And, to Voyager 2, now beyond Neptune and traveling much closer to the ecliptic, Jupiter was too close to the Sun to be picked up by the spacecraft's cameras.

So on February 14 - Valentine's Day 1990 - Voyager 1 aimed its cameras at a string of small colored dots clustered just to the right of the constellation Orion - the Hunter. The spacecraft was then 32 degrees above the ecliptic and nearly 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from the Sun. It took 39 wide-angle views and 21 narrow-angle images. The narrow-angle camera, with a lens resembling a telephoto, took three consecutive images through colored filters of seven of the nine planets. This enabled image processors at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to construct the colored portraits of the planets seen on pages 16 and 17. The Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory then pasted together the wide-angle images into the mosaic on the next page.

Voyager had produced the first portrait ever of our Sun and planets together.

But like shy family members at a holiday gathering, the smallest planets avoided having their pictures taken. Mars and Mercury were lost in the glare of the Sun. The outermost planet, Pluto, was too tiny and far away. So this family portrait is incomplete. The next generation of spacecraft will be unable to take another family portrait. Magellan and Galileo, and the planned missions, such as the Soviets' Mars '94 and NASA's Mars Observer and Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby, plus the joint NASA/European Space Agency Cassini mission, will be locked in orbit about their target planets. None of these will ever gain a perspective from which they could see the solar system as Voyager did.

Voyager alone could look homeward and capture our family of planets as they looked on February 15, 1990. Voyager alone could so graphically show us how Earth and the planets are inextricably linked to our parent Sun.

Home is now a corner of space brightened by a small yellow star. Family is now a company of planets circling that star together. Our home and family now encompass an entire solar system.

Thank you, Voyager.

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May 30, 2024

Voyager 1’s Revival Offers Inspiration for Everyone on Earth

Instruments may fail, but humanity’s most distant sentinel will keep exploring, and inspiring us all

By Saswato R. Das

Artist's rendering of a Voyager spacecraft in deep space.

Dotted Zebra/Alamy Stock Photo

Amid April’s litany of bad news—war in Gaza, protests on American campuses, an impasse in Ukraine—a little uplift came for science buffs.

NASA has reestablished touch with Voyager 1 , the most distant thing built by our species, now hurtling through interstellar space far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The extraordinarily durable spacecraft had stopped transmitting data in November, but NASA engineers managed a very clever work-around, and it is sending data again. Now more than 15 billion miles away, Voyager 1 is the farthest human object, and continues to speed away from us at approximately 38,000 miles per hour.

Like an old car that continues to run, or an uncle blessed with an uncommonly long life, the robotic spacecraft is a super ager that goes on and on—and, in doing so, has captivated space buffs everywhere.

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Launched on September 5, 1977, the one-ton Voyager 1 was meant to chart the outer solar system, in particular the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, and Saturn’s moon, Titan. Its twin, Voyager 2 , launched the same year, followed a different trajectory with a slightly different mission to explore the outer planets before heading to the solar system’s edge.

Those were NASA’s glory days. A few years earlier, NASA had successfully landed men on the moon—and won the space race for the U.S. NASA’s engineers were the envy of the world.

To get to Jupiter and Saturn, both Voyagers had to traverse the asteroid belt, which is full of rocks and debris orbiting the sun. They had to survive cosmic rays, intense radiation from Jupiter and other perils of space. But the two spacecraft made it without a hitch.

President Jimmy Carter held office when Voyager 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral; Elvis Presley had died just three weeks before; gas was about 60 cents a gallon; and, like now, the Middle East was in crisis, with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat trying to find peace.

Voyager 1 sent back spectacular photos of Jupiter and its giant red spot. It showed how dynamic the Jovian atmosphere was, with clouds and storms. It also took pictures of Jupiter’s moon Io, with its volcanoes, and Saturn’s moon Titan , which astronomers think has an atmosphere similar to the primordial Earth’s. The spacecraft discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and two new Jovian moons, which were named Thebe and Metis. On reaching Saturn, it discovered five new moons as well as a new ring.

And then Voyager 1 continued on its journey and sent images back from the edge of the solar system. Many of us remember the Pale Blue Dot , a haunting picture of the Earth it took on Feb 14, 1990, when it was a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the sun. The astronomer Carl Sagan wrote:

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

By then Voyager 1 had long outlived its planetary mission but kept faithfully calling home as it traveled beyond the solar system into the realm of the stars. By 2012 Voyager 1 had reached the heliosphere , the farthest edge of the solar system. There, it penetrated the heliopause, where the solar wind ends, stopped by particles coming from the interstellar medium, the vast space between the stars. (Astronomers know that the space between the stars is not totally empty but permeated by a rarefied gas .)

From Voyager 1, scientists learned that the heliopause is quite dynamic and first measured the magnetic field of the Milky Way beyond the solar system. And its instruments kept sending data as it traveled through the interstellar medium.

On hearing that Voyager 1 had gone dark, I had checked in with Louis Lanzerotti , a former Bell Labs planetary scientist who did the calibrations for the Voyager 1 spacecraft and was a principal investigator on many experiments. He told me that a NASA manager in the 1970s had doubted that the spacecraft’s mechanical scan platform, which pointed instruments at targets, and very thin solid state detectors, which took those edge of the solar system readings, on the spacecraft would survive. They not only survived but worked flawlessly for all this time, Lanzerotti said, providing excellent data for decades. He was overjoyed on hearing the news that Voyager 1 was still alive.

Voyager 1 instruments have power until 2025 . After that, they will shut off, one by one. But there is nothing to stop the spacecraft as it speeds away from us in the vast emptiness of space.

Thousands of years from now, maybe when the human race has left this planet, Voyager 1, the tiny little spacecraft that could, will still continue its inexorable journey to the stars.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Things are finally looking up for the Voyager 1 interstellar spacecraft

Two of the four science instruments aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft are now returning usable data after months of transmitting only gibberish, NASA scientists have announced.

I was once sitting with my father while Googling how far away various things in the solar system are from Earth. He was looking for exact numbers, and very obviously grew more invested with each new figure I shouted out. I was thrilled. The moon? On average, 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away. The James Webb Space Telescope ? Bump that up to about a million miles (1,609,344 km) away. The sun? 93 million miles (149,668,992 km) away.  Neptune ? 2.8  billion  miles (4.5 billion km) away. "Well, wait until you hear about Voyager 1," I eventually said, assuming he was aware of what was coming. He was not.

"NASA's  Voyager 1  interstellar spacecraft actually isn't even in the solar system anymore," I announced. "Nope, it's more than 15 billion miles (24 billion km)  away from us  — and it's getting even farther as we speak." I can't quite remember his response, but I do indeed recall an expression of sheer disbelief. There were immediate inquiries about how that's even physically possible. There were bewildered laughs, different ways of saying "wow," and mostly, there was a contagious sense of awe. And just like that, a new Voyager 1 fan was born.

It is easy to see why Voyager 1 is among the most beloved robotic space explorers we have — and it is thus easy to understand why so many people felt a pang to their hearts several months ago, when Voyager 1 stopped talking to us.

Related:  After months of sending gibberish to NASA, Voyager 1 is finally making sense again

For reasons unknown at the time, this spacecraft began sending back gibberish in place of the neatly organized and data-rich 0's and 1's it had been providing since its  launch in 1977 . It was this classic computer language which allowed Voyager 1 to converse with its creators while earning the title of "farthest human made object." It's how the spacecraft relayed vital insight that led to the discovery of new Jovian moons and, thanks to this sort of binary podcast, scientists incredibly identified a new ring of Saturn and created the solar system's first and only "family portrait." This code, in essence, is crucial to Voyager 1's very being.

Plus, to make matters worse, the issue behind the glitch turned out to be associated with the craft's Flight Data System, which is literally the system that transmits information about Voyager 1's health so scientists can correct any issues that arise. Issues like this one. Furthermore, because of the spacecraft's immense distance from its operators on Earth, it takes about 22.5 hours for a transmission to reach the spacecraft, and then 22.5 hours to receive a transmission back. Alas, things weren't looking good for a while — for about five months, to be precise.

But then, on April 20, Voyager 1  finally phoned home  with legible 0's and legible 1's.

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"The team had gathered early on a weekend morning to see whether telemetry would return," Bob Rasmussen, a member of the Voyager flight team, told Space.com. "It was nice to have everyone assembled in one place like this to share in the moment of learning that our efforts had been successful. Our cheer was both for the intrepid spacecraft and for the comradery that enabled its recovery."

And  then,  on May 22 , Voyager scientists released the welcome announcement that the spacecraft has successfully resumed returning science data from two of its four instruments, the plasma wave subsystem and magnetometer instrument. They're now working on getting the other two, the cosmic ray subsystem and low energy charged particle instrument, back online as well. Though there technically are six other instruments onboard Voyager, those had been out of commission for some time.

The comeback

Rasmussen was actually a member of the Voyager team in the 1970s, having worked on the project as a computer engineer before leaving for other missions including  Cassini , which launched the spacecraft that taught us almost everything we currently know about Saturn. In 2022, however, he returned to Voyager because of a separate dilemma with the mission — and has remained on the team ever since.

"There are many of the original people who were there when Voyager launched, or even before, who were part of both the flight team and the science team," Linda Spilker, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory , who also worked on the Voyager mission, told Space.com in the This Week from Space podcast on the TWiT network. "It's a real tribute to Voyager — the longevity not only of the spacecraft, but of the people on the team."

To get Voyager 1 back online, in rather cinematic fashion, the team devised a complex workaround that prompted the FDS to send a copy of its memory back to Earth. Within that memory readout, operators managed to discover the crux of the problem — a corrupted code spanning a single chip — which was then remedied through another (honestly,  super interesting ) process to modify the code. On the day Voyager 1 finally spoke again, "you could have heard a pin drop in the room," Spilker said. "It was very silent. Everybody's looking at the screen, waiting and watching." 

Of course, Spilker also brought in some peanuts for the team to munch on — but not just any peanuts. Lucky peanuts. 

It's a longstanding tradition at JPL to have a peanut feast before major mission events like launches, milestones and, well, the possible resurrection of Voyager 1. It  began  in the 1960s, when the agency was trying to launch the Ranger 7 mission that was meant to take pictures of and collect data about the moon's surface. Rangers 1 through 6 had all failed, so Ranger 7 was a big deal. As such, the mission's trajectory engineer, Dick Wallace, brought lots of peanuts for the team to nibble on and relax. Sure enough, Ranger 7 was a success and, as Wallace once said, "the rest is history." 

Voyager 1 needed some of those positive snacky vibes. 

"It'd been five months since we'd had any information," Spilker explained. So, in this room of silence besides peanut-eating-noises, Voyager 1 operators sat at their respective system screens, waiting. 

"All of a sudden it started to populate — the data," Spilker said. That's when the programmers who had been staring at those screens in anticipation leapt out of their seats and began to cheer: "They were the happiest people in the room, I think, and there was just a sense of joy that we had Voyager 1 back."

Eventually, Rasmussen says the team was able to conclude that the failure probably occurred due to a combination of aging and radiation damage by which energetic particles in space bombarded the craft. This is also why he believes it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see a similar failure occur in the future, seeing as Voyager 1 is still roaming beyond the distant boundaries of our stellar neighborhood just like its spacecraft twin,  Voyager 2 .

To be sure, the spacecraft isn't fully fixed yet — but it's lovely to know things are finally looking up, especially with the recent news that some of its science instruments are back on track. And, at the very least, Rasmussen assures that nothing the team has learned so far has been alarming. "We're confident that we understand the problem well," he said, "and we remain optimistic about getting everything back to normal — but we also expect this won't be the last."

In fact, as Rasmussen explains, Voyager 1 operators first became optimistic about the situation just after the root cause of the glitch had been determined with certainty. He also emphasizes that the team's spirits were never down. "We knew from indirect evidence that we had a spacecraft that was mostly healthy," he said. "Saying goodbye was not on our minds."

"Rather," he continued, "we wanted to push toward a solution as quickly as possible so other matters on board that had been neglected for months could be addressed. We're now calmly moving toward that goal."

The future of Voyager's voyage

It can't be ignored that, over the last few months, there has been an air of anxiety and fear across the public sphere that Voyager 1 was slowly moving toward sending us its final 0 and final 1. Headlines all over the internet, one written by  myself included , have carried clear, negative weight. I think it's because even if Voyager 2 could technically carry the interstellar torch post-Voyager 1, the prospect of losing Voyager 1 felt like the prospect of losing a piece of history. 

"We've crossed this boundary called the heliopause," Spilker explained of the Voyagers. "Voyager 1 crossed this boundary in 2012; Voyager 2 crossed it in 2018 — and, since that time, were the first spacecraft ever to make direct measurements of the interstellar medium." That medium basically refers to material that fills the space between stars. In this case, that's the space between other stars and our sun, which, though we don't always think of it as one, is simply another star in the universe. A drop in the cosmic ocean.

"JPL started building the two Voyager spacecraft in 1972," Spilker explained. "For context, that was only three years after we had the first human walk on the moon — and the reason we started that early is that we had this rare alignment of the planets that happens once every  176 years ." It was this alignment that could promise the spacecraft checkpoints across the solar system, including at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Those checkpoints were important for the Voyagers in particular. Alongside planetary visits come gravity assists, and gravity assists can help fling stuff within the solar system — and, now we know, beyond.

As the first humanmade object to leave the solar system, as a relic of America's early space program, and as a testament to how robust even decades-old technology can be, Voyager 1 has carved out the kind of legacy usually reserved for remarkable things lost to time.

"Our scientists are eager to see what they’ve been missing," Rasmussen remarked. "Everyone on the team is self-motivated by their commitment to this unique and important project. That's where the real pressure comes from." 

Still, in terms of energy, the team's approach has been clinical and determined. 

— NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish

— NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system

— NASA's Voyager 1 probe hasn't 'spoken' in 3 months and needs a 'miracle' to save it

"No one was ever especially excited or depressed," he said. "We're confident that we can get back to business as usual soon, but we also know that we're dealing with an aging spacecraft that is bound to have trouble again in the future. That's just a fact of life on this mission, so not worth getting worked up about."

Nonetheless, I imagine it's always a delight for Voyager 1's engineers to remember this robotic explorer occupies curious minds around the globe. (Including my dad's mind now, thanks to me and Google.)

As Rasmussen puts it: "It's wonderful to know how much the world appreciates this mission."

Originally posted on Space.com .

Monisha Ravisetti is Space.com's Astronomy Editor. She covers black holes, star explosions, gravitational waves, exoplanet discoveries and other enigmas hidden across the fabric of space and time. Previously, she was a science writer at CNET, and before that, reported for The Academic Times. Prior to becoming a writer, she was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She graduated from New York University in 2018 with a B.A. in philosophy, physics and chemistry. She spends too much time playing online chess. Her favorite planet is Earth.

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The most distant human-made object

No spacecraft has gone farther than NASA's Voyager 1. Launched in 1977 to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in August 2012 and continues to collect data.

Mission Type

What is Voyager 1?

Voyager 1 has been exploring our solar system since 1977. The probe is now in interstellar space, the region outside the heliopause, or the bubble of energetic particles and magnetic fields from the Sun. Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but because of a faster route it exited the asteroid belt earlier than its twin, and it overtook Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977.

• Voyager 1 discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and two new Jovian moons: Thebe and Metis.
• At Saturn, Voyager 1 found five new moons and a new ring called the G-ring.
• Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to cross the heliosphere, the boundary where the influences from outside our solar system are stronger than those from our Sun.
• Voyager 1 is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.

In Depth: Voyager 1

Voyager 1 at jupiter.

Voyager 1 began its Jovian imaging mission in April 1978 at a range of 165 million miles (265 million km) from the planet. Images sent back by January the following year indicated that Jupiter’s atmosphere was more turbulent than during the Pioneer flybys in 1973–1974.

Beginning on Jan. 30, 1979, Voyager 1 took a picture every 96 seconds for a span of 100 hours to generate a color time-lapse movie to depict 10 rotations of Jupiter. On Feb. 10, the spacecraft crossed into the Jovian moon system and by early March, it had already discovered a thin (less than 19 miles, or 30 kilometers, thick) ring circling Jupiter.

Voyager 1’s closest encounter with Jupiter was at 12:05 UT on March 5, 1979 at a range of about 174,000 miles (280,000 kilometers). It encountered several of Jupiter’s moons, including Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, returning spectacular photos of their terrain, opening up completely new worlds for planetary scientists.

The most interesting find was on Io, where images showed a bizarre yellow, orange, and brown world with at least eight active volcanoes spewing material into space, making it one of the most (if not the most) geologically active planetary body in the solar system. The presence of active volcanoes suggested that the sulfur and oxygen in Jovian space may be a result of the volcanic plumes from Io, which are rich in sulfur dioxide. The spacecraft also discovered two new moons, Thebe and Metis.

Voyager 1 at Saturn

Following the Jupiter encounter, Voyager 1 completed an initial course correction on April 9, 1979, in preparation for its meeting with Saturn. A second correction on Oct. 10, 1979, ensured that the spacecraft would not hit Saturn’s moon Titan.

Its flyby of the Saturn system in November 1979 was as spectacular as its previous encounter. Voyager 1 found five new moons, a ring system consisting of thousands of bands, wedge-shaped transient clouds of tiny particles in the B ring that scientists called “spokes,” a new ring (the “G-ring”), and “shepherding” satellites on either side of the F-ring—satellites that keep the rings well-defined.

During its flyby, the spacecraft photographed Saturn’s moons Titan, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. Based on incoming data, all the moons appeared to be composed largely of water ice. Perhaps the most interesting target was Titan, which Voyager 1 passed at 05:41 UT on Nov. 12 at a range of 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers). Images showed a thick atmosphere that completely hid the surface. The spacecraft found that the moon’s atmosphere was composed of 90% nitrogen. Pressure and temperature at the surface was 1.6 atmospheres (1 atmosphere equals the average air pressure at sea level on Earth) and minus 290°F (minus 179°C), respectively.

Atmospheric data suggested that Titan might be the first body in the solar system (apart from Earth) where liquid could exist on the surface. In addition, the presence of nitrogen, methane, and more complex hydrocarbons indicated that prebiotic chemical reactions might be possible on Titan.

Voyager 1’s closest approach to Saturn was at 23:46 UT on Nov. 12, 1980, at a range of 78,000 miles (126,000 kilometers).

Voyager 1’s ‘Family Portrait’ Image

Following the encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 headed on a trajectory escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.5 AU per year, 35° out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Sun’s motion relative to nearby stars. Because of the specific requirements for the Titan flyby, the spacecraft was not directed to Uranus and Neptune.

The final images taken by the Voyagers comprised a mosaic of 64 images taken by Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990, at a distance of 40 AU, of the Sun and all the planets of the solar system (although Mercury and Mars did not appear, the former because it was too close to the Sun and the latter because Mars was on the same side of the Sun as Voyager 1 so only its dark side faced the cameras).

This was the so-called “pale blue dot” image made famous by Cornell University professor and Voyager science team member Carl Sagan (1934-1996). These were the last of a total of 67,000 images taken by the two spacecraft.

Voyager 1’s Interstellar Mission

With all the planetary encounters finally over in 1989, the missions of Voyager 1 and 2 were declared part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), which officially began on Jan. 1, 1990.

The goal was to extend NASA’s exploration of the solar system beyond the neighborhood of the outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, and “possibly beyond.” Specific goals include collecting data on the transition between the heliosphere, the region of space dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field and solar field, and the interstellar medium.

On Feb. 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object in existence when, at a distance of 69.4 AU from the Sun, it “overtook” Pioneer 10.

On Dec. 16, 2004, Voyager scientists announced that Voyager 1 had reported high values for the intensity for the magnetic field at a distance of 94 AU, indicating that it had reached the termination shock and had now entered the heliosheath.

The spacecraft finally exited the heliosphere and began measuring the interstellar environment on Aug. 25, 2012, the first spacecraft to do so.

On Sept. 5, 2017, NASA marked the 40th anniversary of its launch, as it continues to communicate with NASA’s Deep Space Network and send data back from four still-functioning instruments – the cosmic-ray telescope, the low-energy charged particles experiment, the magnetometer, and the plasma waves experiment.

The Golden Record

Each of the Voyagers contain a “message,” prepared by a team headed by Carl Sagan, in the form of a 12-inch (30-centimeter) diameter gold-plated copper disc for potential extraterrestrials who might find the spacecraft. Like the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11, the record has inscribed symbols to show the location of Earth relative to several pulsars.

The records also contain instructions to play them using a cartridge and a needle, much like a vinyl record player. The audio on the disc includes greetings in 55 languages, 35 sounds from life on Earth (such as whale songs, laughter, etc.), 90 minutes of generally Western music including everything from Mozart and Bach to Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson. It also includes 115 images of life on Earth and recorded greetings from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1924– ) and then-UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007).

By January 2024, Voyager 1 was about 136 AU (15 billion miles, or 20 billion kilometers) from Earth, the farthest object created by humans, and moving at a velocity of about 38,000 mph (17.0 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun.

National Space Science Data Center: Voyager 1

A library of technical details and historic perspective.

Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration

A comprehensive history of missions sent to explore beyond Earth.

Discover More Topics From NASA

Our Solar System

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The last of us season 2 episode count confirmed & it's shorter than season 1.

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The Last Of Us Episode 9 Ending Explained (In Detail)

The last of us seasons 2, 3 & 4 plans: what it all means, the last of us' new villain gives season 2 the perfect bill & frank replacement episode, the last of us season 2 set photos reveal first look at original voice actor's return.

• The Last of Us season 2 will have 7 episodes, reflecting a carefully planned multi-season arc.
• Showrunner Craig Mazin's will focus on character development over rushing the plot.
• Viewers can remain hopeful for further seasons, with season 3 being hinted at.

The Last of Us season 2 has confirmed the episode count for the upcoming season. The Emmy-winning series The Last of Us first hit the small screen in early 2023, stunning audiences with its emotional adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game of the same name. The Last of Us season 2 has been confirmed, with returning stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey and a new cast that includes Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, and Jeffrey Wright.

Per Deadline , the episode count has been confirmed for The Last of Us season 2 has been confirmed. The season will include seven episodes , making it shorter than TLOU season 1’s nine-episode run. Showrunner Craig Mazin explained that this decision came down to the fact that The Last of Us: Part II video game is far more content-rich than the first game, leading him and co-creator Neil Druckmann to have to think about how to expand the story over a multi-season arc rather than condense it to an overstuffed nine episodes. Check out the full quote from Mazin below:

The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons. When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.

Why The Last of Us Season 2 Episode Count Is Good News

The show could run for multiple future seasons.

Though those invested in the long wait for The Last of Us season 2 may be disappointed at the truncated season 2, there are several reasons why this is good news for the series. The multi-season plan means Mazin is hopeful about The Last of Us season 3 or even 4’s renewal. In the same interview, Mazin mentioned that “ season 3 will be significantly larger ,” and also makes reference to season 4. While The Last of Us season 3 , has not been confirmed, Mazin’s plan would suggest that it is likely.

The Last of Us episode 9 culminated season 1 of HBO’s adaptation with resounding success. Here is everything about the climactic ending explained.

This means that Mazin, Druckmann, and the rest of the Last of Us team will be able to take their time with season 2 . The Last of Us season 1 found its greatest strengths when it slowed down and expounded upon stories alluded to in the game, such as the oft-praise episode “Long, Long Time,” which expanded the story of Bill and Frank. If Mazin and his team have found a good break point in the show, they will hopefully be better equipped to take their time with the story and focus on vital character beats rather than rushing the plot.

The most optimistic part of Mazin’s interview is that he has a carefully thought-out plan for future seasons. Rather than dilute the game’s content, The Last of Us will hopefully show respect for its source material by giving it a multi-season arc. The success of this plan will hinge on the renewal of the series, but with the way The Last of Us season 1 kicked off, that renewal seems likely.

The Last of Us is available to stream on Max.

Source: Deadline

The Last Of Us

Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us developed by Naughty Dog, the story of the TV series takes place twenty years after a parasitic fungal infection wreaks havoc across the world that turns humans into zombie-like creatures. Joel (Pedro Pascal) agrees to smuggle a 14-year-old girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of a quarantine zone, only to discover she may be the key to discovering a cure. The Last of Us TV series is a collaborative effort between one of the original creators, Neil Druckmann, and the creator of the award-winning HBO series Chernobyl.

The Last Of Us Season 2: Cast, Story & Everything We Know

• 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

galleries  /  images voyager took

Images voyager took of saturn.

The Voyager 1 and 2 Saturn encounters occurred nine months apart, in November 1980 and August 1981. Voyager 1 is leaving the solar system. Voyager 2 completed its encounter with Uranus in January 1986 and with Neptune in August 1989, and is now also en route out of the solar system.

For a summary of scientific findings by the two Voyagers at Saturn, click here .

Saturn by Voyager 2.

Larger version of saturn., false-color view of saturn., voyager image of saturn moon enceladus., montage of saturnian system..

Saturn and three moons. Tethys. Dion and Rhea. Aug. 4, 1982. 13 million miles.

Saturn. Moons Tethys. Dione. Shadows, rings and moons on Saturn. Photo Nov. 3. 1980. Range 13 million km.

Saturn’s Northern Hemisphere. Aug. 19, 1981. Range 4.4 million miles.

Enhanced image. Saturn’s clouds. Photo Nov. 5, 1980. Range 8 million km.

Saturn C-ring and B-ring with many ringlets. False-color image. Aug. 23, 1981.

Saturn rings. Color variations indicate different chemical composition.

Saturn rings with "spoke" features in B-ring. Aug. 22, 1981. 2.5 million miles.

Wide-angle view of rings just before Voyager crossed ring plane. Shows entire ring system highly foreshortened.

F-ring. Two braided separate orbit rings. Photo Nov. 12, 1980. Range 750,000 km.

Moon Titan and thick haze. Photo Nov. 12, 1980. Range 435,000 km.

Saturn’s Moon Tethys. Note huge canyon system.

Moon Dione. Many impact craters. Photo Nov. 12, 1980.

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus. 310 miles in diameter. Aug. 25, 1982. 74,000 miles.

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‘sister act 2’ reunion photos: whoopi goldberg breaks down in tears with ‘joyful, joyful’ choir performance, ‘venom: the last dance’ trailer: tom hardy brings the alien one last time.

By Greg Evans

NY & Broadway Editor

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Sony Pictures has released the first trailer for Venom: The Last Dance , even if Tom Hardy ‘s Eddie Brock is still getting a bit used to sharing headspace with an alien symbiote.

In the clip, a seemingly reluctant Brock is cornered by a bad guy or several, and has no choice but to let the Venom drip, even if he is a little rusty at it. Take a look above.

The synopsis: In  Venom: The Last Dance , Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

Venom: The Last Dance  stars Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach and Stephen Graham. The film is directed by Kelly Marcel from a screenplay she wrote, based on a story by Hardy and Marcel. The film is produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy and Hutch Parker.

Venom: The Last Dance releases in theaters on Oct. 25.

Watch the trailer below.

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