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NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

science.nasa.gov

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Re: NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

#121

Post by codetiger »

bonzini wrote: post #74
codetiger wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With little what I know of Voyager, the beautiful machine has broke all previous estimates. And thus hoping it will last until we have another such machine overtake the distance before this one goes into total shutdown

Unfortunately the lifetime of the plutonium RTG is very very predictable (due to the half life of the isotope they use). They are constantly shutting down parts of the probe exactly because the RTG is providing less and less power, and at some point it won't even be enough to heat the probe and run the computers.

Am still keeping my hopes up, scientists will make it wake up once every 6 months and just ping home saying it’s alive. I’ll still call it very much alive, even without science equipments running.

Re: NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

#122

Post by burnerRhodov2 »

philipswood wrote: post #49
dylan604 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else are you looking to see from such deep space? Nothing we launch will ever reach anything anything interesting in probably the life of humanity. Just to get to Pluto in our life times meant going so fast that it could only fly by. Maybe flying around in the Oort cloud might, unlikely though, be interesting.

Exoplanet closeups? You can use the sun as a gravitational lens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens You need to be about 550 au out.

whoa... why aren't we doing that?

Re: NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

#123

Post by philipswood »

burnerRhodov2 wrote: post #122
philipswood wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exoplanet closeups? You can use the sun as a gravitational lens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens You need to be about 550 au out.

whoa... why aren't we doing that?

Even cooler is setting up transmitters and receivers at suitable spots on opposite sides of two stars.

Re: NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

#124

Post by 14 »

bblb wrote: post #54
14 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might explain the Fermi paradox. If life isn't as common as we think it might be and say there are only a few other intelligent alien civilizations in the milky way then if they are a bit farther away like 70000 light years then what are the odds that they sent some sort of hello signal off into the universe which would take 70000 years at the speed of light to reach us and in the exact time it reached earth we…

Your explanation is just as good as the Fermi paradox. In Futurama, the Omicronians know about the Earth from old TV show signals, that's been constantly sent from Earth by then. Would any alien civilization have the patience to constantly send hello world for a millenia or maybe hundred thousand years. Both assume that there _is_ some other life, but that it's hard to reach. We don't know if there is anything else.…

No need to be sorry I really enjoy discussing all thoughts and beliefs regarding our existence and the question of if we are all alone. Our very existence makes absolutely zero sense. I just can't understand how we exist. How did our universe come into existence. I am not talking about the big Bang if that is actually accurate but before that. And if the big Bang comes from singularity of almost infinite dense energy or whatever then what was before that and why did it come into existence. And so on.

Obviously we will never know. I am also fairly confident that most likely there is more life across the universe but that we will also never confirm that to be true. The size of the universe is just too immense and unless we discovered some new physics breakthrough like some sort of particle or way to transmit a signal much faster then the speed of light, milky way is like 100000 light years across and next galaxy over 2 million light years away, so even something going 10 times the speed of light is massively too slow to be significant. We would need to be able to send a signal at minimum 1,000,000 times the speed of light and even at that speed it would still be extremely slow and not likely fast enough to matter.

I do believe there is life out there but most likely it is millions or billions of light years away. And at that distance with our current technology and knowledge it would be impossible for us to find them.

Re: NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

#125

Post by sidewndr46 »

estimator7292 wrote: post #110
sidewndr46 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same notion that has us going "back to the moon" right now. The US did something impressive and interesting several times. In the absence of anything else impressive and interesting now, we're trying to pull the same trick again. As if we're going to arrive on the Moon's surface and suddenly discover it isn't a barren sphere with a rocky surface, no atmosphere & tiny amounts of water on it. There's a reason…

A permanent moon base has real practical benefits. Most likely a key prerequisite to manned missions further than orbit.

so a pre-req to another useless goal?
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