The Voyager 1 probe has provided data for the first time in months

The Voyager 1 probe, the farthest man-made object from Earth, has sent back readable data for the first time in five months, the US space agency (NASA) announced on Monday.

The probe, about 24 billion kilometers from Earth, has not transmitted reliable scientific and technical data on its position since last November, NASA explained. However, agency teams were still able to send commands to it, and the probe, launched 46 years ago, continued to operate normally.

Last March, teams working at NASA laboratories discovered a problem with a chip in a computer in a probe dedicated to integrating scientific and technical data before sending it back to Earth, and they finally found an innovative solution to change the necessary code. .

“The Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and condition of its internal engineering systems,” the agency said, adding: “The next step is for the spacecraft to begin returning science data.”

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only probes to travel through interstellar space, and they recorded sounds and images of Earth on gold and copper plates, plus a map of our solar system and a piece of uranium. A radioactive clock, which allows receivers to determine the launch date of the spacecraft.

Voyager 1, launched in 1977 and became the first human spacecraft to enter the interstellar medium in 2012, is now 15 billion miles from Earth. That means messages from Earth took about 22 and a half hours to reach the spacecraft, and its twin left the solar system in 2018.

(AFP)