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Amateur astronomers have managed to detect an extremely weak radio signal coming from a human object located more than 25 billion kilometers from Eartha technical milestone that once again places Voyager 1 at the center of scientific news. The capture confirms that NASA’s historic probe continues to emit from the limits of the solar system.

The reception occurred thanks to the Dwingeloo radio telescope, in the Netherlands, used by members of the network Amateur Radio in Space. The distance at which Voyager 1 is, about 171 astronomical units, makes this detection a notable technical challengesince the signal that reaches the Earth has an almost imperceptible power.

The probe was launched in 1977 and, after flying over several planets, it continues its journey through deep space. Her career has led her to become the furthest man-made object from Eartha condition that increases the complexity of any communication attempt from our planet.

A technical detection to the limit

The Dwingeloo radio telescope was not originally designed to capture the 8.4 GHz frequency used by Voyager 1 telemetry. For this reason, the team had to install a specific antenna and adapt the systemsince at these frequencies the reflectivity of the dish is lower and the background noise is more difficult to filter out.

To confirm the origin of the signal, amateur astronomers applied Doppler shift calculationscorrecting the effect of relative motion between Earth and the ship. The subsequent analysis made it possible to verify that the detected frequency coincided with that expected for the NASA probe.

The decline of a historic mission

Despite the success, the mission is going through a delicate phase. The progressive loss of resources has forced the US space agency to turn off scientific instruments in order to keep essential systems operational. In recent years, Voyager 1 has suffered memory failures and transmission problems that have tested its endurance.

With the end of the mission scheduled for the early 2030s, each signal received takes on a special value. Detection from Dwingeloo shows that even without the infrastructure of the Deep Space Networkamateur radio astronomy is still capable of listening to the ship that slowly enters interstellar space.