The Voyager mission team at NASA has been able to detect a signal from Voyager 2 after losing contact with the spacecraft, which has been operating for nearly 46 years.
“We enlisted the help of the (Deep Space Network) and Radio Science groups to help to see if we could hear a signal from Voyager 2,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “This was successful in that we see the ‘heartbeat’ signal from the spacecraft. So, we know the spacecraft is alive and operating. This buoyed our spirits.”
Amazing to think how that probe is going to drift in the universe for billions of years.
Its even amazing to understand that it is one of only two man made object that are no longer in our Solar System. Both passed beyond our sun’s solar winds years ago.
More amazing when you realize one of those objects drifts into the system of an advanced semi organic society who rebuild it and make it an AI then send it back out into the universe to continue it’s mission.
I watched a documentary on it when I was younger, highly recommend.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/TP1Zg3ivX80
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Knew what it was before I even clicked on it. Well played, Madison420. Well played, indeed.
It’ll be back. Star Trek made a historical documentary about it.
Harry Potter 8 : so it turns out Voldemort put horcruxes on space probes
“History records a small previously unknown town and school outside London was decimated in 2053 when NASA space probe Voyager 2 inexorably changed course doing a U-turn beyond the Termination Shock of our Solar system and started accelerating quickly back toward Earth. At the time of impact Voyager 2 was traveling faster that 35,000 miles per hour.”
“While scientists continue to argue over what principle was at play here even calling into question a number of established cosmological models, witnesses say that 50 years prior a young man was seen pointing a stick at the sky and yelling ‘Accio Voyager 2!’. This has been dismissed as coincidence as the world still came to terms with the loss of so many lives. Prime Minister and our Dark Lord Voldemort, may he live forever, was unavailable for comment.”
God I would love something like that in a movie.
Typical start where the villain exposits too much, hinting at the locations of 5 special items. The plan is obvious but the heroes spell it out anyway: they need to do collect items 1-5 to stop him.
Each item is increasing difficult with each one but the heroes persevere, just barely surviving 4.
They now need to find 5 but the clues don’t make sense and they are running out of time. The nerdy hero has a revelation. “…I think he means the ISS”
They get in touch with the nerdy hero’s old boss who just happens to work at NASA!
The engineer listens calmy and replies, “Yes, that does sound like a description of the ISS.”
The heroes plead, “We have to go NOW or the world will end!”
“Yeahhhh so…you can’t just launch a rocket. It’s raining in Cape Canaveral and no one is going to approve that. Hell, none of you have had any training so you’d probably pass out and die on the way. Sorry.”
Psh, everyone knows its easier to train people to be astronauts than train astronauts to do other tasks. I saw a documentary about this in the Summer of '98.
In the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfic (https://hpmor.com/) Voldemort puts a horcrux on Pioneer.
Another HPMOR fan!
Accio Voyager!
Is the “heartbeat” carrier signal being broadcast in all directions, or is there enough angular spread that we can pick up a bit of the signal if it’s two degrees off?
It’s a directional signal, and given the distances requires some precise alignment.
More problematic, it’s just really weak inverse square law means the signal is loosing a lot of its strength.
Momonosk! I can hear them! The drums of liberation!
SPACEBOY!
