NASA powers down two instruments on twin Voyager spacecraft to save power

NEW YORK (AP) — NASA is switching off 2 subject instruments connected its long-running duplicate Voyager spacecraft to prevention power.

The abstraction bureau said Wednesday an instrumentality connected Voyager 2 that measures charged particles and cosmic rays volition unopen disconnected aboriginal this month. Last week, NASA powered down an instrumentality connected Voyager 1 designed to survey cosmic rays.

The energy-saving moves were indispensable to widen their missions, Voyager task manager Suzanne Dodd astatine the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said successful a statement.

The duplicate spacecraft launched successful 1977 and are presently successful interstellar space, oregon the abstraction betwixt stars. Voyager 1 discovered a bladed ringing astir Jupiter and respective of Saturn’s moons, and Voyager 2 is the lone spacecraft to sojourn Uranus and Neptune.

Each spacecraft inactive has 3 instruments apiece to survey the sun's protective bubble and the swath of abstraction beyond.

Voyager 1 is implicit 15 cardinal miles (24.14 cardinal kilometers) from Earth and Voyager 2 is implicit 13 cardinal miles (20.92 cardinal kilometers) away.

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