Nasa has detected a “heartbeat” signal from its Voyager 2 probe after it lost contact with it billions of miles away from Earth.
Mission controllers stopped hearing from Voyager 2 more than a week ago after sending a faulty command. On July 21, the satellite, which has been exploring the universe since 1977, was mistakenly told to tilt its antenna to point two degrees away from our planet, resulting in the probe no longer being able to receive commands or send data back to Earth.
Nasa confirmed that the signal means the spacecraft is still broadcasting and is in “good health”.
But, where is the satellite and why was it sent to space? Here is everything we know.
Where is Voyager 2?
Voyager 2 is over 19.9 billion kilometres (12.3 billion miles) away from our planet. It is continuing its 34,390 miles per hour journey through space and is now nearly 46 years into its mission.
Following the wrong command entry on July 21, Nasa’s Deep Space Network lost contact with the spacecraft.
However, now that contact has been re-established, there is hope of finding the probe again.
Can Voyager 2 be found again?
While Nasa has said that the heartbeat signal means that the probe is still working, it is not yet responding to new commands.
On October 15, the device is set to reset its orientation, which will amend the mistake and move its antenna back towards the Earth.
In the meantime, the team at Nasa are hoping that the satellite continues to follow its planned trajectory and will keep trying to bombard the area Voyager 2 is in with the correct command just in case it ends up detecting the signal.
You might have heard... Voyager 2 is taking a break from sending data until October. In the meantime, I'm out here, almost 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth and doing fine! - V1
— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) July 28, 2023
More info from our team: https://t.co/S3BFRo9Va9
Nasa revealed the news on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, saying: “You might have heard … Voyager 2 is taking a break from sending data until October.”
When and why was Voyager 2 sent to space?
Voyager 2 was sent to space in August 1877 to study a rare alignment of outer planets that happens about every 176 years and to explore Jupiter and Saturn.
It is the only spacecraft to ever fly by the ice-giant planets of Neptune and Uranus.
