After five months of glitching, the venerable space probe contacted Earth and is continuing its interstellar mission billions of kilometers away.
After months of challenging trouble-shooting and suspenseful waiting, Voyager 1 is once again talking to Earth.
That means the iconic craft could be on a path to recovery — and to continue its exploration of interstellar space. And thanks to Voyager, scientists now know that, despite expectations otherwise, the sun’s magnetic field and charged particles actually remain significant even beyond the heliopause, says David McComas, a Princeton University astrophysicist not involved in the mission.
Other missions have begun building on Voyager’s solar physics research. These include NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, and the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, which is set to launch next year.
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