NASA recently announced that Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth, has resumed transmitting scientific data back to Earth.
In 1977, the Voyager 1 probe was launched into space.
The Associated Press quoted the agency on June 14 local time as saying that this was the first time Voyager 1 had begun a scientific mission since a technical failure occurred in November last year.
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data to Earth in November last year. In April this year, after the engineering team partially resolved the technical malfunction, Voyager 1 resumed sending readable engineering data about its operation to Earth.
According to the website of NASA, on May 19 this year, the engineering team further carried out repair work and ordered Voyager 1 to resume sending scientific data. The two scientific instruments on Voyager 1 then resumed normal operation. Currently, all four scientific instruments are able to send scientific data back to Earth. These instruments are used to study plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles.
NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977 to explore the solar system and interstellar space. They are the only two man-made spacecraft that have left the solar system and entered interstellar space, and are currently about 24 billion kilometers and 20 billion kilometers away from the Earth, respectively.