The American Voyager flew 1.5 billion kilometers away from the earth and out of the solar system. How did it send back photos to the earth?

The American Voyager flew not 1.5 billion kilometers away from the earth, but more than 20 billion kilometers. But flying out of the solar system is still controversial. The astronomical community has different views on the scope of the solar system. One view is to use Pluto as the boundary, so the radius of the solar system is 40 astronomical units, about 6 billion kilometers; the other is to use the Kuiper Belt as the boundary, about 100 astronomical units from the sun. unit, about 15 billion kilometers.

There is also a theory that the Oort cloud is the boundary, which is the birthplace of comets and the gravitational range of the sun, with a radius of about 1 light-year. According to the first two of these three theories, Voyager has already flown out of the solar system. According to the later statement that the radius of the solar system is 1 light-year, it is still early. It has only flown for a little over 21 light-hours. According to the current situation, it is about 17 light-years per second. At a speed of kilometers, it will take more than 17,000 years for Voyager to fly out of the solar system.

Although the Voyager is far away from the earth, humans can not only communicate with it, but also control it. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on December 1 that it had recently successfully restarted a set of thrusters for the Voyager 1 probe that had been dormant for 37 years. On November 28, NASA aircrews sent a test command to activate the orbit correction operation thrusters to Voyager 1. Twenty hours after this command was transmitted, a message was sent from Voyager 1 showing the orbit correction operation thrusters. Obligations are normal.

This adjustment is to keep the white cauldron-like high-gain antenna facing the earth to facilitate the reception and transmission of radio signals. This antenna has a 3.7-meter-diameter paraboloid, allowing it to transmit a stronger signal with less energy concentration. Voyager 1 relied on this to transmit a large number of starry sky photos to the earth.

The plutonium batteries (nuclear power batteries) carried by Voyager 1 and its sister ship Voyager 2 will last until about 2025. When the battery dies, they can no longer send data back to Earth!

The Voyager probe is an outer galaxy space probe developed and built by the United States. Two of them were launched to date. The original names were "Mariner 11" and "Mariner 12". Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 were launched on August 20 and September 5, 1977 respectively. The two sister probes fly along two different orbits and are responsible for detecting the planets at the center of the solar system.