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Space
Space
Science
Elizabeth Howell

NASA figured out how to keep its 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe running for yet another year

A spacecraft consisting of a large round radar dish, three long pole-like appendages extending from an octagonal body, floating in space on a starry background.

NASA just made an interstellar tweak to the Voyager 2 spacecraft, known as the "Big Bang", to keep its remaining 50-year-old science instruments running a little longer.

Voyager 2 and its twin launched in 1977, called Voyager 1, rely on a form of nuclear battery known as a radioisotope thermoelectric generator that uses the heat produced by the decay of plutonium. But the supply of plutonium on each probe drops at about four watts a year on each spacecraft.

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