Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and its companion, Voyager 2, have outlasted their expected lifespan, making them NASA’s most enduring missions.

Initially designed for a five-year journey to study Jupiter and Saturn, their discoveries, such as detecting active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io, extended their mission. Each carries a “golden record,” encapsulating Earth’s sounds and images, intended for potential extraterrestrial encounters. Valuable tech, that is!

Voyager’s technology, considered antiquated by modern standards, possesses just 69.63 kilobytes of memory, far less than a basic image file today. Their longevity is attributed to their uncomplicated design, enabling them to manoeuvre between missions, although they constantly erase data to make room for new observations. But, it’s not all fun and games.

Despite enduring for decades, both spacecraft have encountered glitches, such as Voyager 2’s antenna tilt and Voyager 1’s past communication mishaps.

Currently, Voyager 1 is 15 billion miles away from Earth, while Voyager 2 traverses space at a distance exceeding 12.6 billion miles. Good luck spotting it in the night sky.

Command signals take 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1,extending the wait time to assess the spacecraft’s response to commands to 45 hours. NASA predicts several weeks for formulating a new strategy to troubleshoot the present Flight Data System issue.

Engineers are now delving into the probe’s core problem before devising a corrective plan. This task involves referencing aged engineering documents, compelling the team to meticulously comprehend the impact of new commands to evade unintended repercussions. Calla Cofield from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory emphasizes that despite their relentless efforts to prolong the Voyagers’ operations, such anomalies are foreseeable and expected given how long the probes have been active.

As engineers work tirelessly to diagnose the issue, the resilience and significance of the Voyager missions continue to inspire awe, underscoring their enduring legacy in space exploration. Solving the mysteries of space requires a lot of research, and sometimes it may glitch. On those days, the scientists can only go back and try to fix the problem as and when they occur. But it’s cooler than fixing cutlery drawer problems, that’s for sure.

With The Eras Tour going on, Taylor Swift’s fans are trying left and right to get tickets for the show. And, in all the craziness, one of her fans, Davis Perrigo, thought of a brilliant idea to attend the show when he was unable to secure the tickets. He revealed how he became a stadium security guard to watch the concert. Davis went viral when he was spotted on the front stage of the Nissan Stadium in Nashville while he was singing along to the songs.

He explained how he got upset when he couldn’t get the concert tickets. That’s when he thought of his father, who used to work as a security guard. And it hit him that it would probably be a great idea to apply for the security guard’s post at the stadium. Similar to Perrigo, many fans got frustrated and sad when they couldn’t secure the Eras Tour tickets, which soon resulted in some backlash from them. Even Taylor Swift herself issued a statement on Instagram, acknowledging how she’s protective of her fans, and that she doesn’t want them to get bullied whether or not they got the tickets for the show.

Perrigo, an accountant, said that the duties were very minimal and he only needed to only keep people in check. Being a die-hard Taylor Swift fan, he went with the flow and couldn’t hold his excitement. And, he apparently got berated on the job and asked to take it down a notch. He also shared that he couldn’t document the show because of the no-phones and no-photography policies. However, many Swifties recorded him singing and dancing to Taylor Swift’s hit tunes. And, after so many videos of him enjoying the show, he became quite a sensation on the internet.