Voyager 2: Beyond the Heliosphere

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your own home fantastic so if you're noticing that you're losing your hair that's one problem that's not going to fix itself do something about it for a limited time go to keeps.com forward slash megaprojects or click the link in the description below to receive 50 off your first order and now today's video [Music] void two the groundbreaking or should i say atmosphere-breaking fly by spacecraft first to many historic achievements for humanity second just some other thirsts first to achieve other firsts a second time second to achieve some seconds a first time one spacecraft two missions half a dozen planets billions of kilometers and endless endless space confused yet yes while prepare to have your mind truly blown with the story of voyager 2 destined to soar endlessly in open space fated to lose contact with humanity soon a story whose scope transcends the limits of the solar system and extends far beyond where humanity has ever traveled before these are scales of time and measurement so vast it's difficult to comprehend through our earthly perspective this truly is perhaps the most mega of mega projects so suit up start the countdown and prepare to launch into a universe of knowledge today we're looking at the voyager 2 spacecraft and its mission around and out of the solar system [Music] voyager 2 to layman's eye resembles a kind of weird space shovel if you sort of squinted it hard enough aesthetically the main part of the craft the blade of the shovel consists of the 3.6 meter diameter antenna that sends data back to earth the antenna is mounted on a decahedral bust only 47 centimeters that's 18.5 inches tall and 1.78 meters or 5.8 feet wide which houses much of the craft's electronics the handle of the space shovel measures 13 meters 42.6 feet long and holds the magnetometers used to measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields from the bus many different booms jut out containing different instruments and mechanisms a 2.5 meter 8.2 foot boom contains a good majority of the scientific instruments a separate boom that juts down and away from the scientific instruments holds the craft's radioisotope thermoelectric generators or rtgs voyager 2's power source finally two whip antennas both 10 meters or 32.8 feet long extend out and are used to measure radio emissions from plasma resonances near and lightening on the planets the craft would encounter altogether the craft weighs about 721.9 kilograms or about 1 600 pounds on earth at least in space it doesn't given the length of its mission and the distance it would travel away from earth voyager 2 was equipped with several thousand sets of pre-coded instructions that it could execute autonomously these instructions included error detection and correction routines that would enable the craft to detect and avoid or fix problems before operators back on earth were even aware of them this would allow the spacecraft to operate for days even weeks at a time with no direct control from humans on earth the spacecraft though was made during a time when technology was still in its infancy compared to today to give an example our modern day smartphones have over two hundred thousand times more memory than is contained in voyager 2. nonetheless this spacecraft would collect and send back loads of data much of which has shaped the modern perception of our neighbors around the sun saturday august 20th 1977 united states a gallon of gas cost 65 cents a new house just under 50 thousand dollars fans around the world were mourning the death of elvis presley just four days prior just a month before the grateful dead released their ninth studio album terrapin station and james bond had saunded across the silver screen yet again in the spy who loved me meanwhile at the kennedy space center in cape canaveral florida the unmanned spacecraft called voyager 2 was leaving the surface of the earth though dubbed the second of the duo voyager 2 actually took off two weeks and two days ahead of its sister craft voyager 1 which is confusing the reason for the inverse names and launch dates is credited to the craft's mission timing though voyager 1 launched second it was put on a trajectory to complete its flybys of jupiter and saturn first hence why he was awarded the premier moniker and its brother craft first to space but destined to play catch up from then on the secondary title to add more depth to the story the voyager spacecrafts were originally called by different names mariner 11 and 12. their designs were based heavily off the previous mariner crafts but just five months before the then mariner spacecraft's launch nasa administrator james c fletcher announced the name change board 1 and 2 represented what was left of nasa's original plan of a grand tour through the solar system a plan that would have four advanced spacecraft explore the outer planets nasa scrapped the idea after expected costs rose above a billion dollars instead nasa scientists proposed an alternative to launch two crafts that could observe jupiter and saturn in more detail than pioneer 10 and 11 the predecessors when voyage 2 finally launched mission planners had modified its path to include exploration of uranus and neptune as well this trajectory made using gravity-assist maneuvers after flybys of jupiter and saturn and was only possible because of the unique alignment of the planets such an alignment only occurred every 176 years that means nasa won't be able to take advantage of such an alignment again until the year 2153 [Music] after its launch in august 1977 voyager 2 took nearly a year and eight months to reach jupiter and her moons though the images sent back were following those already sent from voyager 1 voyager 2's image came at a much closer range now close in terms of space travel does not equate with close in earth terms the photos of callisto ganymede europa io amaze were all taken at the closest range at a distance of 205 720 kilometers or about 127 000 miles to put that in perspective that's just over 16 times the diameter of earth voyager 2's close brush with jupiter's moons was from 16 earth distances away the closest our intrepid unmanned voyage got to jupiter was 645 000 kilometers or 400 000 miles or 50 and a half earths though to be fair nearly 11 earths could fit across the diameter of jupiter so the giant planet does take some distance to truly appreciate some of what voyager 2 observed from its distance were atmospheric changes a drift and changes in the shape and color of the great red spot and a three mile resolution mapping of 80 of ganymede and callisto's surface two hours after its closest encounter with jupiter an encounter so far away by an object so small that if there is intelligent life on jupiter or anywhere they probably wouldn't have noticed then voyage 2 corrected its course and made its silent speedy way towards saturn [Music] it took voyager 2 another two years and four months from its encounter with jupiter to reach the ringed gas giant its encounter with saturn started on august 22 1981 four years and two days after it left mother earth a baby born at the same time would by then be able to catch a bounced ball most of the time use scissors and name some colors and numbers the four-year-old voyager 2 had already taken over 17 000 new pictures mapped out jovian moon surfaces and completed a 10 hour volcano watch on europa and io it's fair to say voyager 2 would be a fairly high functioning child voyager 2 still playing catch up to its toy sent back much of the same photos of saturn as had voyager 1 though it did get around 23 000 kilometers or just over 14 000 miles closer its closest brush came in a distance of 101 000 kilometers that's 63 000 miles that's enough distance to travel around the earth's equator two and a half times or to fit fifteen and a half amazon rivers in voyage 2 transmitted back pictures and data of saturn's rings and moons confirming much of what voyager 1 had sent back earlier however voyager 2 helped scientists to conclude that saturn's a-ring was probably only 300 meters or 980 feet thick a surprisingly thin measurement for something encircling such a large planet four and a half times the diameter of earth big to be exact voyage 2 also photographed several of saturn's 82 moons hyperion enceladus tethys phoebe helen telesto and calypso the spacecraft even passed through the plane of saturn's rings at the blistering pace of 13 kilometers or 8 miles a second this proved fast enough to vaporize the micron-sized dust grains in saturn's ring of floating debris and create clouds of puff plasma which caused the spacecraft to fire its attitude control jets to stabilize its path border two's successful flyby and documentations of jupiter and saturn meant it had filled its primary objectives however this wonky shovel-looking contraption floating through space was far from done with its work a prime factor setting voyager 2 apart from its younger elder sibling was the latter part of its mission after flying by jupiter and saturn voyage 1 corrected its course and made its way to exit the solar system voyager 2 however corrected its course with a different name the outer planets first stop uranus the journey from its encounter with saturn to its first contact with uranus would take voyager to nearly four years and two weeks to complete doubling its mission time as it stood then voyage 2's flight path both by jupiter and uranus was optimized to make flybys of uranus and neptune possible in that order on november 4th 1985 voyager 2 began long-range observations of uranus 3 months and 20 days later on january 24th 1986 voyager 2 made its closest contact with uranus at a distance of 81 500 kilometers or 50 640 miles enough to fit over 20 mississippi rivers in by the way at this distance from earth the information sent from the spacecraft's instruments took two and a half hours to reach the earth by the time the first close images of uranus reached earth voyage zoo is nearly halfway done with its close observations of the planet scientists obtained a wealth of knowledge about uranus from this flyby they discovered 10 new moons and two new rings 724 kilometer per hour or 450 mile-per-hour winds and evidence of a boiling ocean of water nearly 800 kilometers just under 500 miles under uranus's top cloud surface forged 2's path allowed it to fly closer to uranus moons than it had anything else during its time in space thus far cruising by at a closest distance of 28 260 kilometers or about 17 500 miles enough to fit almost three and a half great walls of china the cameras on board the spacecraft took and sent back stunning photos of five of uranus larger moons miranda oberon ariel umbriel and titania the exhilarating observations voyager 2 sent back were thrown into sharp relief by a jolting reminder of the dangers of space travel on january 28 1986 only four days after voyager 2 made close contact with uranus the space shuttle challenger exploded shortly after launching from the same pad that voyager 2 had departed from all seven astronauts aboard challenger perished in the tragic accident the explosion was a tragic reminder of just a much blood sweat and tears going to space exploration the voyager 2 billions of kilometers away from this calamity kept hurtling along on its mission snapping pictures and sending back data the whole time when voyager 2 completed its flyby of uranus it performed the largest maneuver it had executed yet and set itself on a course for a flyby of neptune [Music] 12 years and five days after leaving our terrestrial home voyager 2 made its closest contact with its final destination in the solar system neptune this final flyby marked the climax of a 7 billion kilometer or 4.3 billion mile journey through the solar system and just for reference that distance is the equivalent of 172 683 trips around the world at the equator to put that as a perspective if you were to drive around the equator at a speed of 100 kilometers that's 60 miles per hour 24 hours a day non-stop it would take you 17 days to complete one trip to complete the equivalent of voyager 2's journey it would take you over 8 000 years of non-stop driving our intrepid voyager accomplished that feat in just over 12 years so i guess they didn't have to stop the bathroom breaks the neptune flyby was the closest of voyager 2's encounters with our solar system's planets they got as close as 4 800 kilometers or about 3 000 miles from neptune's clouds less than half an earth away it became the first man-made object to fly by neptune and with all instruments in working condition it sent back a wealth of data that has shaped our modern perception of the giant blue planet voyager 2 discovered six new moons and four new rings around the planet and introduced us to the coldest known planetary body in the solar system neptune's largest moon triton sporting a nitrogen ice volcano although methane is the element responsible for giving neptune its blue color data sent back revealed that hydrogen is the most abundant atmospheric element on the planet the images of voyager 2 sent gave scientists more details on the lesser dark spot the great dark spot and scooter major features in neptune's clouds further data revealed the 1 100 kilometer 680 mile per hour winds tearing about on the planet showing scientists that neptune is a lot more active than they previously thought after just 12 years long enough for a child born on the same day his boy just launched to experience puberty voyager 2 had completed the original plan of the grand tour project that it was replacing just like human contemporaries though the spacecraft too would soon be going through some big changes once more intertw left neptune behind it charted a course that would take it below and out of the plane of the solar system once the graft got 56 million kilometers or 35 million miles away from neptune scientists put its instruments into low power mode to conserve energy for the journey into interstellar space there exists a bubble of safety that surrounds our solar system as the sun hurtles through space surrounded by its planets it emits plasma and ionized material as well as a magnetic field known as the solar wind the solar wind extends only so far stopping at the point where material from other stars and bodies in the universe often left over from explosions tens of millions of years ago pushes back this bubble is known as the heliosphere the boundary of this bubble is called the heliopause it is seen as marking the outer edge of our solar system in the 1970s nasa sent out four crafts to explore beyond the boundaries of the solar system pioneers 10 and 11 and voyagers 1 and 2. the latter three were all sent in the direction of the sun's path through the universe so out in front of the sun pioneer 10 was sent back in the opposite direction of the sun's course of these four crafts only two have breached the limit of the solar system voyager 1 and 2. in 2012 voyager 1 became the first human-made object to enter interstellar space on december 10 2018 nearly 41 years and four months after its launch from cape canaveral florida 21 years after its non-essential instruments were permanently turned off and six years after its twin voyager 2 became the second human-made object to leave the solar system in 2019 voyager 2 fired up its thrusters to adjust its position this seemed like a simple maneuver but it's important for two big reasons first voyager 2 hadn't used these thrusters since the craft's encounter with neptune 30 years prior fairly impressive when was the last time you picked up a piece of technology 30 years old and it just worked perfectly second these thrusters our voyage to satellite will remain pointed in earth's direction ensuring that we can still receive the data it sends since it makes up half of our presence in interstellar space its data is invaluable to scientists although voyager 2 was only the second craft across the boundary between our solar system and the rest of the universe its crossing was still significant for many reasons when the first voyage across the heliopause the measurements it sent back home were incomplete thanks to a defunct plasma temperature detector however voyager 2 still worked so scientists were able to learn that within 140 million miles of the heliopause the plasma in the heliosphere slows down heats up and becomes denser as the craft crossed the heliopause it showed scientists that the temperature of the interstellar plasma is 54 000 degrees fahrenheit nearly 30 000 degrees celsius which was warmer than scientists had expected sound scolding but plasma in interstellar space is spread so thin that the average temperature still works out is extremely cold since scientists have only breached the indiciola boundary twice there's still much we don't know about this bubble in which we live in fact it's even in doubt if this bubble is indeed shaped like a bubble more measurements need to be taken to be sure but there are speculations that the heliopause is spherical others that it could look like a croissant and still others that there could be a tail left behind from the solar wind now the voyager 2 has joined its twin in its lonely journey through the enormous expanse of interstellar space its only job is to send back readings of the plasma and other materials that make up the interstellar medium in 40 000 years voyager 2 will fly by the star ross 248 and in 296 000 years it will pass by the brightest star in the sky serious these flybys will be from distances of 1.7 light years and 4.3 light years respectively enough to fit over 579 heliospheres in at the shortest distance these distances enough to boggle the mind the time it would take to traverse just one light year at the speed voyager 2 was traveling when it left the solar system is nearly 20 thousand years that means voyager 2 will be 34 000 years away from the closest star it will pass in the next several dozen millennia in addition voyager 2 will have lost contact with earth or run out of energy tens of thousands of years before it even gets close to these stars however humanity launched these crafts on their lonely missions hoping that they wouldn't be so lonely after all on board both voyager spacecraft is a golden record a message from humanity the message to who well to anyone who might bump into these lonely wanderers since the spacecraft measure not even two dozen meters from tip to tip at the longest point they're traveling in a place where trillions of miles is considered a flyby the odds of any intelligent life-form bumping into them are well fairly small so that leaves the intended recipient of our golden record to either be an incredibly lucky space go or a civilization advanced enough to detect something that if the universe was scaled down to her earthly dimensions would make a speck of dust look absolutely giant nonetheless we humans hopeful as ever sent out these golden records with images pictures and information about earth for any intelligent being willing to learn about us and our tiny blue rock these golden records are actual functioning lps like the sort you'd find in the 1970s playable on a turntable at any disco hall the record contains various pictures 16 in total that show scenes of nature cities and humans on earth as well as models of our solar system and mathematical equations there are also various sounds like greetings in 55 languages every day sounds like a train chugging along on train tracks and sounds from nature like cricket's chirping there are also 27 tracks of music from artists of all different cultures and generations the most iconic symbol of the golden record though is perhaps the cover in which it's housed since the chances of the alien race that found the record having or knowing how to operate a turntable are slim to none nasa had to figure out a way to explain how to play it but the chances of the alien race speaking english or any other language from earth being again zero nasa had to figure out how to communicate these instructions effectively the crux from which all deciphering of the album hinges on is hydrogen the most commonly found molecule in the universe on the cover scientists put a diagram of hydrogen atoms in the state when they emit radiation this radiation has a definite wavelength 0.7 nanoseconds scientists figured that any civilization that has mastered space travel and technology enough to find the golden record will be able to decipher this hydrogen riddle 0.7 nanoseconds is the basic unit of measurement for all the other diagrams on the cover using binary code the cover gives a number of radiation wavelengths which equates to when multiplied by the 0.7 nanosecond basic unit 3.6 seconds this is the speed at which the record would need to be played in order to make sense of its contents at this stage the aliens would easily be able to listen to the songs sounds and greetings from earth however to see the pictures it requires a bit more deciphering as we mentioned before these crafts were made during a time when technology was in its infancy compared to today the golden records are a great example of this their storage capacity sits at 69 kilobytes barely enough to store one picture and downright measly compared to today's devices that allow us to hold hundreds of gigabytes in the palm of our hands nasa known for their out-of-the-box thinking that box here being the solar system came up with a way to encode the image data of all 116 pictures they put the data in the audio waveforms that played by the lp if listened to with the naked ear they sound just like a bunch of buzzes and beeps however using the base measurement of 0.7 nanoseconds and executing some nasa level code breaking the aliens would presumably be able to decipher the rest of the diagrams on the cover allowing them to give 2d life to these pictures from earth another symbol on the cover is that of a circle the circle is there as a way for the aliens to check if they have decoded the image correctly the first image on the record to decode is a circle if the aliens see that the first decoded image and the symbol on the cover match they will know that they're on the right track and not just well running in circles last but probably one of the first images you'd notice on the golden records cover is the pulsar map this map which looks just like a bunch of lines or converging at one point is a map of earth's location in the universe the lines are measuring from earth to various neutron stars that are giving off pulses of radiation this triangulation of our location in the universe would give any alien race that discovered our message a map back to earth and its source humans so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe also if you've got a suggestion for a future mega projects video please do use the comments below and as always thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

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Length: 24min 11sec (1451 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 14 2022