Happy Thought for 7 March 2025

Have a Happy Thought: 

Do you ever feel like you’ve got just a little too much going on, and you need to cut back on some activities to keep yourself going?  

 

You are definitely not alone – even space probes face this challenge. In fact, the two space probes that have travelled the farthest* from Earth – Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 – are going through this right now.  

* Voyager 1 is over 25 billion kilometers from Earth, and it takes over 23 hours for light, or any signals, to travel that distance.  

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech via Space.com 

 

 

Each of the Voyager probes started with the same set of 10 instruments. Since a lot of these were intended to research the outer planets of our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), it was an easy decision to turn off some of the instruments years ago. (That link above is to a great visualization and explainer of the Voyagers’ journeys and some of their key discoveries.) 

This illustration shows the various instruments locations on the Voyager spacecraft.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

 

Now, though, power supply is dwindling quickly and some very hard decisions are being made. These latest decisions mean each Voyager craft will only have three working instruments each. Given that these intrepid Voyagers are outside of the solar system, scientists can still learn a lot from whatever we can get from them. 

Instrument 

Voyager 1 

Voyager 2 

Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) 

Off to save power (Feb 25, 2025) 

On 

Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) 

On 

Off to save power (Mar 24, 2025) 

Magnetometer (MAG) 

On 

On 

Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS) 

On 

On 

Plasma Science (PLS) 

Off because of degraded performance (Feb 1, 2007) 

Off to save power (Sep 26, 2024) 

Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) 

Wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras off to save power (Feb. 14, 1990) 

Wide-angle and narrow angle cameras off to save power (Oct 10 and Dec 5, 1989) 

Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS) 

Off to save power (Jun 3, 1998) 

Off to save power (Feb 1, 2007) 

Photopolarimeter Subsystem (PPS) 

Off because of degraded performance (Jan 29, 1980) 

Off because of degraded performance (Apr 3, 1991) 

Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) 

Off to save power (Jan 15, 2008) 

Off to save power (Feb 21, 2008) 

Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) 

Off to save power (Apr 19, 2016) 

Off to save power (Nov 12, 1998) 

 

Long story short: if you’re feeling overwhelmed, or a bit run down, you are allowed to shut off some instruments cut out some activities to save yourself some energy! 

 

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