Where Is Voyager Now
Students learn where Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are today, how the Deep Space Network hears their faint signals across about a light-day, how the spacecraft crossed the heliopause, and how fading plutonium power forces engineers to shut instruments off.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops8 stops
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What students will see and do
Students fly from Earth to the live positions of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, look back at the Sun, rise above the solar system to picture the heliosphere, and return to each Voyager. Aetherion pauses three times: at Earth (why the Deep Space Network is spread around the globe), above the solar system (why it mattered to measure the heliopause directly), and at Voyager 2 (how to choose which instruments to keep as power fades).
Learning objectives
- Explain why the Deep Space Network has stations spread around the world and how large dishes collect faint signals.
- Describe how long a radio signal takes to travel between Earth and Voyager 1 and what that means for commanding it.
- Identify the heliosphere and heliopause and when each Voyager crossed into interstellar space.
- Explain how radioisotope power works and why the Voyagers lose power every year.
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS1-3 | Students use light-travel time to grasp the scale of Voyager's distance from Earth. |
|---|---|
| MS-PS4-3 | The mission depends on digitized radio signals, which are a reliable way to send information across billions of miles. |
| MS-ETS1-2 | Engineers weigh competing options when choosing which instruments to shut down as power declines. |
Stops on this journey
- Three Giant Ears (discussion stop)
- One Light-Day Away
- The Sun from Far Away
- Leaving the Sun's Bubble (discussion stop)
- The Southern Traveler
- Fixing a Computer a Day Away
- Power That Fades (discussion stop)
- Into the Far Future
Vocabulary
- Deep Space Network
- light-day
- radio waves
- heliosphere
- heliopause
- interstellar space
- radioisotope power
- plutonium