NASA's interstellar Voyager 2 probe suffers a communication breakdown, leaving it alone in deep space

An artist's depiction of a Voyager probe entering interstellar space.

Update for 1:30 p.m. ET: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) issued a statement on Twitter that they have picked up a signal from Voyager 2 using the agency's Deep Space Network which is capable of receiving weak signals from distant spacecraft.

JPL stated that Voyager 2's carrier signal, what they call its "hearbeat," confirms the spacecraft is still broadcasting. "Engineers will now try to send Voyager 2 a command to point itself back at Earth. If that does not work, we'll have to wait until October, when the spacecraft's onboard software automatically tells it to reset its direction," JPL's statement adds.