The schematics of the Voyager spacecraft include a plutonium-238-powered Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, which is why Voyager 1 and 2 can still communicate with us today. New Horizons also has one attached, which should provide fuel and power for it throughout the next decade at least. (NASA / JPL-CALTECH)

NASA Finally Contacts Voyager 2 After Unprecedented Seven-Month Silence

As long as it remains operational, we’ll have a chance to conduct groundbreaking science with it.

In the history of spaceflight, only possess enough energy to leave the gravitational pull of our Solar System. While thousands upon thousands of objects have been launched into space, overcoming the gravitational pull of planet Earth, the Sun is more than 300,000 times as massive as our home planet, and is far more difficult to escape from. A combination of fast launch speeds and gravitational assists from other planets were required to leave our Solar System, with only Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons attaining “escape velocity” from our Sun.

While Pioneer 10 and 11 are now inactive, New Horizons and both Voyager spacecrafts remain operational, powered by . Voyager 1 has overtaken all other spacecrafts and is now the most distant: 22 billion km away, pulling away from the slightly slower Voyager 2 at “only” 18.8 billion km distant. Since the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, NASA has had no contact with Voyager 2, but an upgraded deep space network dish . Here’s the fascinating science that keeps us in…