What is NASA :
NASA is responsible for science related to air and space.NASA was started on October 1, 1958 , as a part of the United States government. nasa is in charge of u.s. science and technology that has to do with airplanes or space.
Senator Bill Nelson was sworn in as the 14th NASA administrator on May 3, 2021. He is tasked with carrying out President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' vision for NASA to demonstrate American leadership in air, space, and on Earth for the benefit of all humanity.
Salary of people working in NASA :
As of Oct 25, 2024, the average hourly pay for a Nasa CEO in the United States is $57.79 an hour.
aliens?
Are humans the only intelligent species in the universe?
are there other intelligent beings Somewhere?
If aliens really exit, then it is natural to think that perhaps aliens ask such questions too. are they alone in this universe?
How can we establish communication between two intelligent species in our universe?
Keeping this in mind nasa has spearheaded many projects. to somehow send a message to the aliens. In 1977 nasa launched its voyager 1 spacecraft with a clearly defined mission. to explore our solar system including its outer planets the edges of our sun's effects and even beyond that. In simple words it was an Interstellar mission. there are millions of solar systems in our milky way galaxy. the space between these solar systems is known as interstellar space.
Till date, nasa has launched only 5 Interstellar spacecrafts. they were the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, voyager 1, voyager 2, and new horizons. and only 2 of these 5 have been able to reach Interstellar space because it takes an extremely long time to reach the Interstellar space beyond our solar system. the two that have reached this are very special. Voyager 1 and voyager 2 . They went around exploring our solar system giving in amazing photos of Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and uranus. till date voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have gone near uranus and neptune. and the voyager 1 journey has been so long that it has officially become the man made object that went farthest from the earth. as of October 2024 it is 24.7 billion kilometres away from the earth. but the most interesting part about these two voyagers is that they are carrying message for aliens. that is now travelling through space. these messages were sent with the hope that we might meet aliens someday and through these messages we can tell them something about us.
What is hidden in these messages?
What message does nasa want to convey to aliens on behalf of humankind?
In 1965 an engineer working at nasa noticed that the last four planets of our solar system. Saturn, Neptune, uranus, and Jupiter would be in a unique geometric arrangement during the late 1970s. which occurs only once every 175 years. this arrangement meant that a spacecraft could be sent which could take advantage of the gravitational force of these four planets and pass near these four planets using relatively little fuel and time. this principle is called gravity assist. Using the mass of a planet or an object in space to change its speed and trajectory. because on this principle nasa made plans for its voyager 1 and voyager 2 mission voyager 1 had to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, specially focusing on Saturn's moon, Titan and voyager 2 had to pass by Jupiter, Saturn, uranus and neptune. the design of both the spacecraft were quite similar. both were powered by 3 radioisotope thermoelectric generators. they did not have solar panels. because after crossing mars and Jupiter solar energy becomes useless to a large extent at that distance. the sun's rays do not have sufficient energy so that solar energy could be obtained from it while their mission was to for beyond the solar system. that way these devices are powered by the radioactive decay of the element plutonium. When plutonium decays heat is released. that heat can be converted into electricity. that why it was named the radioisotope thermoelectric generator. apart from this both the space probes carry 10 scientific instruments. the interesting thing is that voyager 2 was launched before voyager 1.voyager 2 was launched on 20th August 1977. and 16 days later on 5th September 1977 voyager 1 was launched from nasa Kennedy space center. voyager 1's route was shorter and faster than voyager 2 s. so voyager 1 reached Jupiter first and in march 1979 it recorded this amazing time lapse. this is a time lapse made with 66 different photos. Jupiter rotation takes about 10 hours. this was the first time we could see such Clear Photos of jupiter and its moons. and this is when we discovered jupiter's rings. many people think that only Saturn has rings around it. but there are rings around Jupiter too. although the are not clearly visible unless you are close to it. Jupiter it's moons and it's rings these three components together are called the jovian system. the word jovian comes from the roman god of sky and thunder "jove". and jove other name is Jupiter on which this planet was named. three other planets in our solar system are like Jupiter. Saturn, uranus, and neptune. there are rings around all these planets as well as multiple moons. these are gas giants. this is why these four planets are collectively called the jovian planets. Jupiter like planets. during the exploration of this jovian system voyager 1 discovered the ongoing volcanic activity of Jupiter moon. this was the first time humans had seen active volcanoes on other planet. before voyager 1 reached Jupiter we thought that Jupiter had 13 moons. but once voyager 1 reached there we found that there are two more moons. a few months later on 9th July 1979 voyager 2 reached Jupiter and it could get even closer to Jupiter. once it got closer we discovered other moon near Jupiter. because of the discoveries of these voyager missions, the number of Jupiter moons increased from 13 to 16. but do you know what? we have discovered as different moons. that's right 95 moons orbiting around Jupiter. about 1.5 years later on 12th November 1980. voyager 1 reached near Saturn. by this time voyager 1's speed had increased much more than voyager 2's that it took 9 more months for voyager 2 to reach Saturn. once it reched Saturn voyager 1 discovered 3 new moons atlas Prometheus and Pandora. at that time there were about 15 know moons of Saturn. but by now around 146 moons have been discovered. voyager 1 has captured the photos of many moons. apart from the earth this is the only object in our solar system where we have clear evidence of the existence of a lot of water in liquid state. Titan moon after crossing Saturn. the paths of voyager 1 and voyager 2 diverge. Voyager 2 continues towards uranus and neptune. and becomes the first and only man made object to fly by near these planets. It passed by uranus in 1968 Neptune in 1989. On the other hand voyager 1 changed its trajectory and left the ecliptic plane. But voyager 1 flies above and beyond this plane. using gravity assist voyager 1's probe gets extremely fast. today it is flying across space at the speed of more than 60,000km per hour. on 1st January 1990 voyager's Interstellar mission began. the official mission was to go beyond the sun in fluence. on 14th February 1990. voyager 1 took this famous photo. the pale blue dot. this photo was taken when voyager 1 was about 6 billion kilometres away from the earth. in it our earth looks like a small blue dot. from this perspective voyager 1's camera took a selfie of our inner solar system. in which Venus earth, Jupiter, Saturn, uranus, and neptune can be seen together. voyager 1 cameras were shut down to save power and memory, after this for years there was no update from voyager 1.
Voyager 1 update :
In 1998 there was a minor update when it become the man made object that went the farthest from the earth then in 2004 it was said that voyager 1 passed the termination shock.
Voyager 1 letest information:
For now the voyager 1 spacecraft in moving at a speed of 61,198 km per hour. approximately 25 billion kilometres from earth. in the depths of interstellar space. it's not going to function for long. it's power supply is gradually depleting. scientists estimate that in 2025 it's power supply might be entirely depleted.
aliens message :
Both of them are carrying messages from aliens. the message sent with the voyagers. are actually 12 inch gold played copper discs and phonograph record send on the voyagers have been name the golden record. the contents of this record have been divided into four sections.
The first section is "scenes from earth"
It contains 115 images and diagrams providing information about our planet and the species on it. in includes basic mathematical, chemical and physical definition as well.
The second section is "greetings from earth"
Greetings spoken by humans in 55 languages. it also carries printed message. by the then American president Jimmy Carter an the then secretary general of the United Nations kurt waldheim.
The third section is "music from earth"
It contains musical selections from different cultures and eras on earth. there are 28 audio recording. of eastern and western classical music including song.
The fourth section is "sound of earth"
Where the natural sounds from earth can be heard. it contains 21 audio recording. of human activities, machine and natural phenomena.
Obviously, it aliens are to hear these sounds they would need to know how to operate this phonograph. and so nasa scientists added the instructions in the box, the good news is that these instructions aren't in English of Hindi because obviously what are the chances that aliens will understand our language. and the bad news is that these instructions have been depicted in the from of diagrams. operating a phonograph isn't very difficult. aliens will need to understand how to, take the disk place it on the box and place the needle on it.
The biggest question here is?
Will any voyager spacecraft even reach an alien ?
even if it reaches an alien species will that alien species have the intelligence level to decode this record or not ?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BLOG.
THANK YOU.......
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