2023-08-04 06:37:40
By Mayeul Aldebert
Posted 46 minutes ago, Updated 46 minutes ago
Artist’s impression of the Voyager 2 spacecraft flying over the gaseous planet Neptune. STEVEN HOBBS/Leemage via AFP
NARRATIVE – NASA temporarily lost contact with the second probe that left more than 46 years ago. But the probe “is fine”, assured the American scientists.
They are the first human objects to have crossed the threshold of the solar system to enter the interstellar void. They are also the first spacecraft to have probed the planets of Jupiter, Neptune or Uranus by bringing back the very first photographs of these gas giants that we find today in all astronomy books. Suffice to say that each incident concerning these two probes, launched from Earth in 1977, arouses the emotion of the scientific community.
On July 21, NASA announced that it had lost contact with the Voyager 2 probe, following an inadvertent command sent “which pointed the antenna 2 degrees away from the earth“. At 19.9 billion kilometres, that tiny error counts. It takes 18 hours and 28 minutes to send a communication to the probe. But American scientists announced this week that they had heard a reassuring signal, even if the communication should be completely…
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