NASA restarts one of Voyager 1's thrusters after 21 years of inactivity
47 years and eight months after its launch, Voyager 1 continues to push the limits of what seemed possible. Currently 24.88 billion kilometers from Earth – 166 times the distance between Earth and the Sun – Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from our planet. The legendary NASA probe, launched in 1977 alongside its twin, Voyager 2, is set to have its mission extended a little longer since engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced on May 14 that they had successfully revived, remotely, a thruster critical to the spacecraft's survival.
Voyager 1 navigates using the positions of stars, which it can read by controlling its roll – that is, its rotation relative to the axis of its antenna – using two thrusters (a main and a backup).
Over time, leftover propellant residue deposited after each firing gradually clogged the narrow inlet pipes of the main thruster. This forced engineers to switch both Voyager 1 and 2 to their backup roll thrusters to keep them pointed at their guide stars. But the backup thruster itself gradually became "clogged," leaving the ground team with few options, especially since the main system failed in 2004. At the time, engineers concluded that the failure was "probably irreversible."
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AFP
a day ago
- AFP
Antarctica's brief gain in ice mass fuels climate denial
"In a development that's leaving climate alarmists scrambling, new data shows that Antarctic ice has increased in size for the first time in decades -- reversing the long-touted trend of mass loss and environmental collapse," reads a May 28, 2025 Facebook post from The Hodgetwins, US conservative commentators whom AFP has previously fact-checked. Image Screenshot of a Facebook post taken on May 30, 2025 Similar narratives dismissing the impact of climate change popped up on social media after traditional media reported in early May on a study's findings about Antarctic ice sheet (archived here). The study, from March, found that between 2021 and 2023, Antarctica's ice sheet expanded and therefore did not add to global mean sea level rise. The gain did not, however, counter the overall rise observed over those years because of ice loss and warming elsewhere (archived here and here). And weather conditions -- specifically unusual precipitations, including snow and some rain in east Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula -- were the primary reason the ice sheet gained mass, the study's corresponding author and other scientists told AFP. This short-lived, partial gain does not disprove the impact of climate change on the continent, they said. Short-lived reversal Yunzhong Shen, the study's corresponding author, told AFP May 19 that the increase observed between 2021 and 2023 occurred on a "too short timescale" to be treated as a trend reversal -- or to deny the impacts of climate change in the region (archived here). The gain witnessed in Antarctica's ice sheets also seems "to stop after 2024, which needs to be determined by further study," he said. James Kirkham, a scientist with the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative scientist, concurred (archived here): "The most recent levels reported by NASA thus far in 2025 look similar to what they were back in 2020, just before the abrupt gain." When looking at Antarctic total mass balance, NASA's dataset shows a net loss in mass since 2002. Image A screenshot taken on May 28, 2025 of a chart displaying Antarctica's ice mass variations since 2002, according to data gathered by NASA (NASA) In fact, that "Antarctica would experience increased snowfall in a warmer climate is entirely expected as in a warmer climate the atmosphere can hold more moisture," Kirkham said in a May 27 email. "This means that the likelihood of extreme weather (such as the heavy snowfall which caused the recent mass gain in east Antarctica) increases." Brandon Daly, who studies glaciers and ice sheets, agreed (archived here). "When climate change deniers talk about the glaciers in Antarctica, they will usually only focus on the surface of the ice sheet," he said May 28, explaining that they ignore other ice loss. "Ice in contact with the ocean is what is melting, and it will continue to melt even if precipitation over the ice sheet increases," he said. "And it is the ocean-forced melting that is currently risking ice sheet instability and sea level rise." Long trends observed University of Minnesota climate scientist Peter Neff said May 27 that human climate change impacts in Antarctica are already widely seen around the Antarctic Peninsula and coastal Antarctica, but have been slower to penetrate inland (archived here). The continent is "like a giant pancake with very steep edges that slow the north to south penetration of warmer air over the southern ocean," he said. Almost all of Antarctica's ice losses come from glaciers, largely in west Antarctica and the peninsula (archived here and here). Robert McKay, director of Victoria University of Wellington's Antarctic Research Centre, told AFP May 15 that scientists are mostly concerned with these sectors because they may be "near a tipping point" that could lead to greatly accelerated sea level rise (archived here). Environmental change thus takes different forms in different regions. Brief temporary offsets of overall losses through recent regional snowfalls, such as the one observed between 2021 and 2023, are unlikely to change the long-term trajectory of continent-wide ice losses, with continued warming. Additionally, weather stations -- whose data network remains scarce in the continent -- have observed long-term warming and impacts on sea level rise, albeit with very large year-to-year variability given that Antarctica holds the most variable climate in the world (archived here and here). Satellite data has recently revealed that ice sheets with enough frozen water to lift oceans some 65 metres are far more sensitive to climate change than previously suspected (archived here). The amount of ice melting or breaking off into the ocean from Greenland and west Antarctica, now averaging about 400 billion tonnes a year, has quadrupled over the last three decades, eclipsing runoff from mountain glaciers. Both polar oceans are warming, with the "Southern Ocean being disproportionately and increasingly important in global ocean heat increase," according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international consortium of climate scientists (archived here). AFP has debunked other claims about the Poles, including here.
Euronews
2 days ago
- Euronews
Donald Trump withdraws Elon Musk associate as his pick to lead NASA
President Donald Trump is withdrawing the nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Trump adviser Elon Musk, to lead the US' space agency NASA. "After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA," Trump wrote late on Saturday on his social media site, Truth Social. "I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space". The White House did not respond to a request from the Associated Press to clarify what that meant. In response, Isaacman thanked Trump and the Senate, writing on X that the past six months were "enlightening and, honestly, a bit thrilling". "It may not always be obvious through the discourse and turbulence, but there are many competent, dedicated people who love this country and care deeply about the mission," he said. "That was on full display during my hearing, where leaders on both sides of the aisle made clear they're willing to fight for the world's most accomplished space agency". Trump announced in December during the presidential transition that he had chosen Isaacman to be the space agency's next administrator. Isaacman, 42, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight on Musk's SpaceX company in 2021. He is the CEO and founder of Shift4, a credit card processing company. He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk. Musk appeared to lament Trump's decision after the news broke earlier on Saturday, posting on X that, "It is rare to find someone so competent and good-hearted". SpaceX is owned by Musk, a Trump campaign contributor and adviser who announced this week that he is leaving the government after several months at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Trump created the agency to slash the size of government and put Musk in charge. China launched a spacecraft that promises to return samples from an asteroid near Mars and yield "groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos," the country's space agency said. The Tianwen-2 probe launched early on Thursday from southern China aboard the workhorse Long March 3-B rocket. The probe will collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3 and explore the main-belt comet 311P, which lies even farther from Earth than Mars, according to the China National Space Administration. Shan Zhongde, head of the CNSA, was quoted as saying the Tianwen-2 mission represents a "significant step in China's new journey of interplanetary exploration" and over its decade-long mission will "yield groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity's knowledge of the cosmos". Samples from 2016HO3 are due to be returned in about two years. The asteroids, chosen for their relatively stable orbits, hopefully will offer clues into the formation of Earth, such as the origins of water. China earlier returned rock samples from the moon's far side back to Earth in a historic mission and has welcomed international cooperation. However, any cooperation with the US hinges on removing an American law banning direct bilateral cooperation with NASA. The near side of the Moon is seen from Earth, and the far side faces outer space. The far side is also known to have mountains and impact craters, and is much more difficult to reach. China also operates the three person-crewed Tiangong - or "Heavenly Palace" - space station, making the country a major player in a new era of space exploration and the use of permanent stations to conduct experiments in space, especially since the station was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over US national security concerns. China's space programme is controlled by the People's Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party. The country's space programme has grown rapidly in the more than 20 years since it first put a man in space, only the third country to do so under its own speed. The space agency has landed an unmanned explorer on Mars and a rover on the far side of the Moon. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030. A future Tianwen-4 Jupiter mission will explore Jupiter, although details haven't been released.
France 24
4 days ago
- France 24
Vienna calling: Strauss's 'The Blue Danube' to waltz into outer space
But the world famous waltz will truly travel among the stars on Saturday, when the European Space Agency's (ESA) antenna will broadcast a live performance of it into space to celebrate the composer's 200th birthday. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will play a concert in the Austrian capital from 1930 GMT, Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told AFP. The concert will be broadcast live on the internet and also be shown at a public screening in Vienna, in New York at Bryant Park, and near the antenna in Spain. "The digitised sound will be transmitted to the large 35-metre satellite dish at ESA's Cebreros ground station in Spain," Aschbacher said. And from there, the waltz will be "transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves", the Austrian astronomer explained. 'Typical of space' Like no other waltz by Strauss junior, "The Blue Danube" evokes the elegance of 19th-century imperial Vienna, which lives on in the city's roaring ball season. For Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna tourist board, the Danube waltz is a "true unofficial space anthem" because of Kubrick. The timeless waltz is the "typical sound of space", Kettner said, with the tunes being played "during various docking manoeuvres of the International Space Station (ISS)". When the waltz is performed on Saturday, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will make sure to underline the waltz's airiness as if it were floating through space, its director Jan Nast said. According to Nast, who put together the programme for Saturday's hour-long "interstellar concert", music is a language "which touches many people" and has "the universal power to convey hope and joy". Filling a gap Once transmitted via Spain's satellite dish, the signal will travel at the speed of light to eventually reach NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant man-made object in the universe -- in approximately 23 hours and 3 minutes. After surpassing Voyager 1, it will continue its interstellar journey. By catching up with the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, Austria also seeks to right a perceived wrong. Both Voyagers carry "Golden Records" -- 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. The record holds 115 images of life on Earth, recorded in analogue form, and a variety of sounds and snatches of music. While "The Magic Flute" by Austria's composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was included among the selection of 27 music pieces, Strauss's famous waltz was not.
