[Bumped -- to offer a more positive spin on the morning's news / headline fare. . . smile. See comments below, and Prof. Avi Loeb in the archived masthead, below, as well.]
If one were to look for a sci-fi(-ish) moment in it all (as we earlier mentioned), this finally. . . might be it.
JPL says that the spacecraft mysteriously started trying to send its telemetry data back through an onboard computer that failed decades ago. [The team long ago decommissioned that errant processor.]
And NASA is not sure why it would have done so, unless something else is affecting its operating software. This however is the official statement; and my bracketed largely fanciful guess, immediately below.
[So, if there were any extra-terrestrial AI machines (of any sort) beaming intermittent radio waves at V'ger. . . that might manifest by a reboot, to start sending telemetry data via the busted old computer, on board. I'll admit that this is a very odd way to reveal intelligence to Earth, after-all if the AI is smart enough to reconfigure sixty year old software on the fly, it is certainly smart enough to know that the data stream is being sent home to Earth. That is, why not just beam back directly to Earth "take us to your leader" or some such? Who knows?] Here is the JPL/NASA release, in any event:
. . .Engineers don’t yet know why the AACS started routing telemetry data to the incorrect computer, but it likely received a faulty command generated by another onboard computer. If that’s the case, it would indicate there is an issue somewhere else on the spacecraft. The team will continue to search for that underlying issue, but they don’t think it is a threat to the long-term health of Voyager 1.
“We’re happy to have the telemetry back,” said Dodd. “We’ll do a full memory readout of the AACS and look at everything it’s been doing. That will help us try to diagnose the problem that caused the telemetry issue in the first place. So we’re cautiously optimistic, but we still have more investigating to do. . . .”
Indeed -- I think they. . . do. Smiling. . . out, and g'night. . . .
नमस्ते
oooooooh..interesting..but, I know think it is beyond V-ger....I think it is the Borg...resistance is futile.
ReplyDeleteFutile. . . indeed!
ReplyDeleteAnd. . . I just read that one "fairly respectable" scientist is arguing that the alien tech is already here -- just hidden, at the bottom of our oceans:
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1119941103/astronomer-searches-ocean-extraterrestrial-meteor-alien-life-avi-loeb
Hmm. "Never say never", but color me. . . skeptical.
Great stuff, Anon.!
Thanks for that link ~didn't see that. But, I think I saw that movie too~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuM7uRdIcb8 I did like that one too esp the liquid surfactant for breathing...
ReplyDeleteIn addition, please feel free to correct my 'know' to 'now.'
Peace and onto my payment of a root beer float.
"Abyss" is a great guilty sci-fi pleasure of mine, to be certain! [Though Loeb actually finding a fragment of alien tech on the vast floor of the South Pacific, after whatever it was hit the Earth moving over 100,000 miles an hour. . . is to look for a single needle -- in over a million haystacks, me thinks.]
ReplyDeleteAnd I would edit yours, but here (blogger, as opposed to wordpress), the admin. account cannot edit comments already submitted.
I knew exactly what you meant, though -- so it's all good.
And. . . to be clear, I haven't earned the root beer float until. . . he's perp walked!
Time and tide. . . time, and. . . tide.
Grinning -- as it looks pretty highly likely now.