The Final Countdown: NASA "Big Bang" Plan to Save the Voyager Legacy NASA has provided a sobering update on the energy levels of the legendary Voyager 1 and 2 probes. As they venture deeper into interstellar space, their power supplies Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) fueled by the natural decay of Plutonium-238 are inexorably fading. The Power Struggle in Interstellar Space When these iconic probes launched, their RTGs produced approximately 158 watts of power. However, with an annual degradation rate of roughly 4 watts , NASA has been forced to make the heart-wrenching decision to power down non-essential instruments one by one. Most recently, on April 17, NASA powered down the Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) experiment , an instrument crucial for measuring ions, electrons, and cosmic rays in the interstellar medium. This leaves only two active scientific instruments remaining on the probes: the Plasma Wave Subsystem and the Magnetometer . Operation ...
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