What have NASA's Voyager probes discovered so far in 2024?

yes as sad as it may sound but NASA really lost contact with the interstellar spacecraft Voyager one after a technical failure turned off the probe's main transmitter a weaker backup transmitter that had not been used since 1981 came to the rescue it was activated and the data that came in began to baffle the mission's leaders what was going on there a failure dismantling for metal by subcomm aliens or maybe something really amazing to answer these questions it is necessary not only to decipher the signals but also to understand where exactly the probes are located and of course to learn about the latest events of the mission after all every year the connection with Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 is becoming weaker due to the Colossal distances currently 25 billion kilm from Earth commands sent from Earth reach the spacecraft in their current position within 23 hours and the answers return to Earth after another 23 hours that's ideal of course as we know the solar system is a huge place our Cosmic neighborhood includes eight planets about half a dozen dwarf planets several hundred moons and millions of asteroids and comets all orbiting the Sun and in many cases each other at thousands of miles an hour like a giant spinning top today the solar system is thought to have not one but three potential boundaries the Kyper belt a ring of Rocky bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune the heliopause the edge of the sun's magnetic field field and the ort Cloud a distant repository of comets that are barely visible from Earth the region is filled with asteroids and DF planets like Pluto that were ejected from the inner solar system as a result of a one-way gravitational tug of war with the planets some astronomers argue that the Kyper belt should be considered the edge of the solar system because it roughly corresponds to the edge of the sun's protoplanetary dis the swirling ring of gas and dust that later became the planets moons and asteroids if we narrowly Define the solar system as just the Sun and its planetary bodies then the edge of the Kyper belt could be considered the edge of the solar system however some astronomers believe that this definition of the solar system is too simplistic since the planet's formed a lot of stuff has been moving around mostly outward this means that the Kyper belt does not contain all of the objects in the solar system such as the elusive hypothetical Planet 9 which if it exists is likely located well outside the Kyper belt for example recent discoveries have revealed dozens of new objects beyond the Kyper belt hinting that a second quer belt May lurk even further out some researchers argue that the uncertainty about the Region's Outer Edge makes it an unreliable boundary for the solar system as a whole however the heliopause is the outer limit of the sun's magnetic influence known as the heliosphere at this point the flow of charged particles emitted by the sun known as the solar wind becomes too weak to deflect the oncoming radiation from stars and other objects in the Milky Way because the plasma inside the heliopause is of solar origin and the plasma outside the heliopause is of interstellar origin some astronomers consider the heliopause to be the boundary of the solar system as a result the space beyond the heliopause is also often called Interstellar space or the space between the Stars however the question remains open does this mean that the two spacecraft have gone beyond the heliopause the answer is yes far from the Sun there is no vacuum no emptiness but a medium filled with particles therefore as in any medium in which there are particles the speed of sound can be determined which corresponds to the speed of propagation of small disturbances the speed of the solar wind for example in Earth orbit is in the range of 400 to 700 km/s and this is about 10 times greater than the speed of sound in the near Earth plasma the solar system in turn is located in the local interstellar medium which is also filled with protons and electrons in a stellar plasma the sun moves through this plasma which can be compared to the movement of an airplane in the air as a result there is an interaction of two flows the spherically symmetric solar wind which spreads from the star in all directions and if we look in the coordinate system associated with the Sun the flow of interstellar plasma running towards us these two flows collide with each other forming an interaction region which consists of several boundaries the boundary closest to the sun which the voyagers crossed is called the heliospheric shock wave it is characterized by the fact that the solar wind slows down from supersonic speed to Sonic Speed and what is happening in this place by what characteristics of the medium do we understand that we have passed this boundary here everything happens like with a supersonic aircraft a shock wave is also formed in front of it where the flow slows down and its density and temperature increase yes these are the boundaries that the probes crossed if you move further from the Sun then at some distance there comes a moment when the pressures of these two colliding flows the solar wind from the inside and the interstellar plasma from the outside are equalized at this point the heliopause is formed and the space inside it is called the heliosphere in general the solar wind does not penetrate the heliopause and the interstellar plasma does not penetrate inside the heliopause however the speed of the solar wind here does not drop to zero but changes Direction its flow turns around and a boundary between the two media is physically formed the solar wind flows around the heliopause from the inside and the interstellar plasma from the outside the heliopause is not a point but a surface with an open shape from the side of the oncoming flow of interstellar plasma it resembles a sphere and from the opposite side it has a long tail when crossing the heliopause changes in the parameters of the environment including the magnetic field can be observed the heliosphere is filled with solar wind plasma and its own magnetic field and outside the heliopause there is Interstellar plasma Interstellar protons with electrons and in an Interstellar magnetic field the first data on the field outside the heliopause were sent by Voyager 1 it turned out that the direction of the field inside and outside is approximately the same this was unexpected and even caused doubts about the reality of the announced event Crossing the heliopause the device also noticed a rapid increase in the field value about 1 and 1 half times Now Voyager 2 has confirmed these results within the measurement error the direction of the magnetic field does not change when crossing the heliopath the most important thing is that Voyager 2 has instruments that directly measure the plasma parameters its density speed which can also be used to estimate the temperature this instrument is not functioning on Voyager 1 it has been broken since 1980 therefore when Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause all measurements of these quantities were indirect the device measured only the magnetic field and particle flows these instruments are working on Voyager 2 so there is much more data now we know exactly how the solar wind behaves When approaching the heliopause today this data is very valuable for theorists who build the corresponding models the working instrument allowed Voyager 2 to estimate the plasma temperature outside the heliopause this firewall can be thought of as an actual physical barrier almost like a wall of hot plasma and Cosmic radiation which suddenly spikes as we cross what is known as Interstellar space the hot plasma ranges in temperature from 30,000 to 50,000 de C the interstellar medium known as the hot plasma wall varies near the heliopause and is hotter than expected we earthlings are very lucky to have this Shield of solar wind the heliosphere which is provided by the sun blocks 70% of interstellar cosmic rays if we did not have a heliosphere cosmic rays would pass freely all the way to Earth causing a serious spike in the radiation we receive it is unclear how much this hot plasma wall will hinder Interstellar travel when we venture beyond the orbit of Mars and out of our solar system but given that both Voyager 2 and even Voyager 1 launched in 1977 passed through it normally there is hope that our Interstellar ships will not be severely damaged although it is unclear how this plasma wall will affect us biological beings this information is new and interesting because the existing numerical models give different values for the temperature and now we can use the measured data to test the models in addition Voyager 1 discovered that some high energy Interstellar particles together with the external magnetic field penetrate a little inside the heliosphere it turns out that the heliopause boundary is not very thin there are some structures with a noticeable thickness with Voyager 2 everything was the other way around in its case the heliopause was quite thin it crossed it in less than a day and outside of it it detected a stream of particles of solar origin which was established by their energies which were lower than expected that is near Voyager 1 Interstellar particles moved inside the heliopause and Voyager 2 notice solar particles outside these are all data from direct measurements their interpretation occurs using model calculations but these Works do not have this they are devoted exclusively to measurements so let's summarize Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause and confirmed that it exists that it is at about the same distance as Voyager 1 had indicated before it is important to understand that in the case of Voyager One there were doubts about the reality of overcoming this B however there are no such concerns now since Voyager 2 has an instrument that directly measures the parameters of the environment we learned directly the properties of the plasma immediately behind the heliopause the magnetic field concentration and temperature we also received accurate data on the parameters of the plasma before the heliopause which Voyager one could not collect due to equipment failure these measurements are unique if only because we have never had anything like this before and will not have anything like this for many years but now about the sad part as we know both probes were launched in 1977 with a difference of only 16 days and voer 2 was the first to launch initially both devices were launched with the purpose of flying past the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn however later the second device also flew past Uranus and Neptune both devices are in excellent Health if we talk about them as people of a venerable age but nothing lasts forever under the moon and even more so in front of the Endless space as we know spacecraft are supplied with electricity by so-called radioisotope thermoelectric generators and gradually lose power as the existing reserves of plutonium Decay every year the power drops by about 4 watts and at the same time the Heat generation which allows the devices to maintain the desired temperature also drops Mission managers are closely monitoring the temperature on board Voyager 2 as it approaches the freezing point of hydrazine a jet fuel so there are often trade-offs between power and heat as the radioisotope power sources run low some instruments on board have had to be turned off these decisions will be made based on what will yield the greatest scientific return but the problems didn't end there on October 19th Voyager One lost all communication the team suspected that the probe's fail safe system had tripped twice more shutting down its x-band transmitter and switching to a second radio transmitter the s-band transmitter although it uses less power voy one hasn't used it to communicate with Earth since 1981 we are now receiving invaluable information but it may be the last in the history of the voyagers both devices are living out their last months it is not a matter of breakdowns but that they are running out of energy and given that both probes are moving further and further away at a speed of 17 km per second the last signal will come at any moment Voyager 1 and Voyager two demonstrated miracles of Technology open New Horizons for science made discoveries that no one could even dream of now they are waiting for Eternal peace in outer space these devices will never return to the solar system sooner or later they will leave it forever the closest star on their path will be GLE 445 from the constellation camel Paralis in 40,000 years they will approach it at a distance of 15 trillion km and then their Eternal wandering through the Milky Way will continue but they will not transmit any information to Earth after all systems are turned off Voyager 1 will carry a golden plate Within information about humanity and the coordinates of the earth through the Milky Way who knows maybe in hundreds of thousands of years representatives of other worlds will find us or maybe what is left of humanity [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]