Ao vivo | A missão que atravessou o Sistema Solar | 17/07/2026

[00:00:17][music] Good evening, everyone. My astronomical greetings to you who are following another edition of Olhar Espacial (Space Gaze). I'm Marcelo Zurita, and together we're going to chat about the most relevant topics in the world of astronomy and space. Welcome to the Spatial Gaze.

[00:01:00][music] [music] Almost 50 years ago, humanity embarked on one of the most ambitious adventures in its history. At a time when computers occupied entire rooms and had less processing power than a cell phone, engineers and scientists dared to send a space probe, two space probes, on a journey through the giant planets of the solar system. What seemed like an extraordinary mission ended up becoming a true epic of space exploration. The Voyager probes revealed worlds teeming with volcanoes, moons covered in ice, and impressive winds and speeds— landscapes that forever changed our understanding of the solar system.

[00:02:03]And the journey continues. Today they continue exploring interstellar space, carrying with them a message from humanity and showing that curiosity can take us ever further. To discuss this fascinating story, we welcome astronomer and science communicator Alexandro Mota today. Good evening, Alexandro, and welcome to Olhar Espacial.

[00:02:30]Good evening, Zurita. Good evening to all viewers of the spatial gaze, and the digital gaze in general, okay? It's always a great pleasure to be here with you all, okay? Tonight. Thank you so much for the invitation once again, Viurita. Yes, we're in this together. And you know that whenever you need us, we're here for you. And today we're going to talk about this truly fabulous mission, to say the least, right? Because thinking about the Voyer mission automatically makes you imagine the pinnacle of space exploration. They've come so far, and are going so far, like no other object has ever gone in history, right? No other object made by humankind has ever come this far.

[00:03:17]And it's truly remarkable where these waves are currently passing through, because it's a colossal distance, difficult even for our minds to measure or imagine.

[00:03:30]Incredible.

[00:03:31]So it is. There's hardly anyone who doesn't admire astronomy, who doesn't like astronomy and admire those little machines made in the 70s that are taking us to the limits of the solar system.

[00:03:46]Well, that's truly a great achievement of humanity, isn't it? And folks, Alexandro Mota is a science communicator, astrophotographer, and amateur astronomer. He dedicates his time to making astronomy more popular among the Lego audience, constantly translating, writing, and recording videos with an educational approach for the Mysteries of Space project.

[00:04:10]Uh, and a friend, right, for many years, right, a long time ago, right, Zorita? Long time. Well, it's from Bramon and astronomy, right, that unites us, uh, with amateur astronomers and many researchers from all over Brazil. And it 's a fantastic network, isn't it?

[00:04:32]In the end, everyone relies on a network.

[00:04:34]So it is. So it is. Okay, so Alexandro is from the Mysteries of Space channel, right? Yeah, many of you know. If you don't know it, look up the channel, okay? The topic we're discussing here, the Void Era probes, is perhaps one of the most talked about in recent months on the Mysteries of Space channel. And it's really something that fascinates, isn't it, the Voyagers, uh, they really took humanity much further into space, to another level, I would say.

[00:05:08]So, the Voyager mission, in general, is a subject I really enjoy discussing because it always generates a lot of curiosity, as it's one of the most famous space missions ever carried out by NASA. And it's no wonder, considering we 're talking about probes that are billions of kilometers from home today, right? And when you say the word billions, we can't measure how big that is, how far away it is. We are used to distances here on Earth—a few kilometers, tens, hundreds of kilometers, a few thousand kilometers—but measuring the billions of kilometers that these probes are from our planet today is difficult to imagine. That is true. And that's perhaps what makes this mission so intriguing to the general public, right? She brings all these little steps, right? Uh-huh.

[00:06:15]Why are these missions considered such an important milestone in the history of space exploration?

[00:06:24]So, Zurita, to begin with, the Voeger probes were, at least until now, one of the few probes that have visited the outermost planets of the solar system. Actually, it was the only mission that visited Uranus and Neptune, for example, right? So, just from that, we already have a very significant impact, because all the images and data we have today of both of these planets, we can say, were obtained by these two probes. Of course, telescopes here on Earth can do their job, but I mean in a physically present way, going there to do flyovers and record the images.

[00:07:07]So, all those close-up images we see in books of these two outer planets were captured by this mission. And beyond that, we have to stop and think that the Voyer mission, the Voyer program itself, these two probes, they carry with them today a small golden record, which we will [clearing throat] certainly discuss here today, which is the mark of humanity, it's where we have data about our planet, about our species, about who we are, right? It's recorded there on the probe. And why was it sent there, right? We'll address this throughout the broadcast, but it's definitely something to applaud, right? Well, that's a very interesting topic to discuss here.

[00:07:59]Also, later on, I might even pull out a model I have here of the Voer operation, so I can explain some important points of this mission to you, okay? Yeah, it's really phenomenal.

[00:08:11]We have several components included in this probe that have transformed space exploration, especially of the outer solar system. We're talking about a study, of course they passed through there, right, by Jupiter, Saturn, and as I said, Uranus and Neptune as well. And today they haven't stopped their activities; they continue measuring and providing scientific data. Of course, in a limited way, we'll address that as well, I believe, but they're bringing it down to earth, right? And it's incredible to think that they've been wandering through space since the 1970s. Very good. I'm having a little trouble with the images here, [laughs] but let's go. Well, one interesting thing about the Voyager spacecraft is that they were designed to take advantage of a very rare alignment between the giant planets.

[00:09:15]Well, that's something I think will only happen again in about 100 years, right?

[00:09:22]Hey Zita, just a pause, forgive me for interrupting. I'm going to grab that model right now and bring it here so everyone can see what the probes were like. I have a really cool little marquee here in 3D, you know? It's 30 seconds. I'm back now.

[00:09:35]Ready. Let's go. We'll be looking at the images here, while Alexandro goes over there. But it really was an opportunity, right, that arose in the 70s, this very rare alignment, right, that would give us the opportunity to observe, right, to send this probe to these outer planets, right?

[00:10:09]Look at her, how cute!

[00:10:11]Look at that, how cool! Let me put you there in full screen, okay?

[00:10:17]That.

[00:10:18]Ready. There are several little things. The pieces are kind of loose here, but there are several pieces that we can fit together. It has a high- gain antenna. Over here we can see the gold record that they still have today, right, even to this day. And it's a very interesting thing, isn't it, for us to address any questions or concerns from the audience during the broadcast, because there's nothing better than having an actual probe in your hands, right?

[00:10:49]That's really cool.

[00:10:52]You can continue, Zurita won't interrupt you anymore. Just [laughs] taking advantage of this moment to bring you some information, right? Roberto Trevisan, José Roberto Trevisan, he's posting this message, right? That today the Voyager 1 probe is the most distant human-made object from Earth, right? As far as he's seen, it's currently 25.9 billion kilometers away from us. In other words, a radio signal will take up to 24 hours to reach here. Okay, that information is up to date.

[00:11:29][Clearing throat] So, we can, we can go through it, and I even left it open here to talk about this, you know, for the people, I've already left here the real-time data that NASA makes available to us. And according to the mission status, its position at this exact moment, probe number one, it is located 25.5 billion kilometers away. That means almost 24 hours of Earth light, right, as José Roberto Trevisan said in his comment. So, it's a truly colossal distance. The Voyager 2 probe is, in a manner of speaking, a little closer to Earth, because it is located 21.3 billion kilometers away, which means it is about 20 light-hours away from our planet.

[00:12:27]There's a slight difference in distance between the probes, right? In any case, those are colossal distances, regardless of which mission we're talking about, right? Sure, a major addendum for mission number one, because it's actually the mission that's getting closer to being a day's worth of work, right? Is that the distance from Earth or is it the distance from the Sun? It's far from Earth, right? Based on what I'm seeing here on the NASA website, the distance to Earth. Because how do they determine the distance of the probe, Zurita? Sure, based on speed, but today we have the possibility, but the main way to know how far away it is is the response time of the antenna to the radio telescopes on Earth. So, if you send her signal, or rather, a signal from here to there or from there to here, it does n't matter, a unidirectional signal, you're going to have a response time. Based on the response time and the speed of light, we can determine the exact distance it's traveling. So, with the response time of the signals, of the commands that we send here from Earth, we have this distance. And one detail: when we say 24 light-hours, almost a light-day, it's just the distance to or from the signal, okay? In practice, communicating with the probes will take us at least two days, because we have to send the command there and wait for it to come back, right?

[00:14:10]Look, just so you have an idea, we're going to do a practical demonstration here of what two-way communication is. I'll say hi, Alexandro. Say hi, Zurita. Beauty.

[00:14:21]Okay. That's when I saw it. Hi, Alexandro.

[00:14:24]Hi, Zurita.

[00:14:26]Ready. Look, it was two- way communication. I sent the message to Alexandro, he received it and replied, okay?

[00:14:33]It took about a second, a second or two, for that response to come back, for that communication to happen. Well, in the case of the Voyager probes, for the object to arrive from Earth to Voyager 1, it will take almost 24 hours, and then after approximately 48 hours I will receive the object from Voyager. So, that's an immense distance traveling at the speed of light for this message, okay? The fastest thing in the universe. Well, it's not like you can just take it and still take all this, right, Zita, to get here and back.

[00:15:17]And it's right there, Alexandro, even though it's 25 billion kilometers away, it's right there in the solar system, isn't it? It gives you goosebumps, it gives you goosebumps, because it's in moments like these that you realize the immensity. No, I'm not even talking about the universe, I'm talking about the galaxy, okay? From the cosmic neighborhood, right? From the nearby stars.

[00:15:44]Yes, it causes an existential crisis for us. That's absurd, okay? Absurd, completely absurd.

[00:15:52]Well, that's something for us to think about, okay, everyone? Yes, that's how far away she is.

[00:15:59]And at the same time, how close she is to us, right?

[00:16:02]Yes, that's right.

[00:16:03]Well, one light-year away, the nearest star is 4.5 light-years away. 4.2 light-years away. That's a lot.

[00:16:16]So it is. And it's difficult for the mind to measure, because remember I said at the beginning that we here on Earth, we mere human beings, are used to dealing with kilometers, a few kilometers, tens of kilometers, right? Uh-huh.

[00:16:34]Hundreds. [clearing throat] Oh, I'm just going to the next town over there. Oh, how many kilometers is it? 80, 100, 40? My God, this isn't even close to where the probes are from Earth today, is it? That's absurd. And in addition to all that, besides mentioning the distance, something I really notice is the engineering involved, a probe like this that allows communication to take place. One of the things I talk about when I make videos for the Mysteries of Space website, something I notice a lot of people commenting on, Zurita, is precisely the fact that they are communicating with Earth after so long, right? After almost 50 years traveling through space, people even joke: "Oh, Voyager is communicating from I don't know where, but I can't make a call.

[00:17:30]My cell phone doesn't work, it doesn't work, Vivo doesn't work next to me," because we're talking about something totally different here, right? A cell phone for a probe, the communication is completely different. We can address that too, Zurita, during the live stream, right? Because the engineering behind the probes' communication is truly fantastic, okay?

[00:17:56]It's technology from 50 years ago, more than 50 years ago in this technology.

[00:18:04]And even so, it's impressive, right?

[00:18:08]Yes, it's impressive. Uh, you notice, look, this is the high- gain antenna of the probe, right? From the Voyager probe, we have a dish here, I don't remember the size of the dish now, the diameter of the parabolic dish here, right, of the probe, but it seems it was about 2 meters in diameter, I don't remember, but there's even one that 's bigger, right?

[00:18:30]It was something Okay, so I even have a really cool image that I can show you guys here if you've allowed screen sharing. Okay, send it over, want to see it? It'll be quick. Let me open it here because I think people will really like this image because it's next to an engineer, right, a mission engineer. And that's amazing. Okay, I found the image. Perfect. Yeah, I think it's this one. People will get a very, very good idea of ​​what I'm talking about. I 'll share the screen here. Let's go.

[00:19:03]And then I'll talk a little bit about the communication from the probe. Look here, this is the probe, or rather, this is the antenna, right, under development for the Voyager probe, next to an engineer, okay? The probe's dish, the probe's parabolic antenna, right, next to a person. To give you an idea of ​​the size. Imagine that this antenna is responsible for sending information to Earth and vice versa, receiving it as well, right?

[00:19:38]This communication is basically carried out by a high-voltage transmitter, right? The frequency is in the GHz band, but I wo n't go into that too much now because I think it's a very technical matter, but this transmission that comes out of there is weaker than a refrigerator light bulb, okay?

[00:20:01]The signal strength coming from that little antenna uses less energy, it arrives here on Earth with less energy, to put it better, than a refrigerator light bulb. When you open the refrigerator to see the food inside and there's a light on, the energy of the signal that arrives here is less than that, right? It's a comparison here so you have an idea.

[00:20:24]To receive this type of signal, the Earth, the people, the engineers here on Earth, right? We have to have a structure. That's where the Deepspace Network, from NASA, comes in, which has antennas [clearing throat] spread all over the world. And then this incredibly weak signal arrives here and we can receive it, of course, amplifying it in various ways to bring the useful data that the probe is sending. And you realize it's a very thin and very [unclear] communication wire. It was delicate.

[00:21:00]So much so that there were times, years ago, I don't remember the year now, but I think it was in 2022, when there was a communication failure with the probe, and it has some thrusters here next to it, right, that throw gases into space to make the antenna turn this way, that way, that way, that way. The idea of ​​these thrusters is precisely to keep the antenna always pointed towards Earth to have constant communication, called attitude control, right?

[00:21:31]Exactly. And there was an error in these thrusters that caused the antenna to deviate slightly. And in that, NASA was simply in a very delicate situation. I don't know if I can say that we almost saw the end of one of the probes, right? This happened with Voyager 2, where the antenna slightly went off course, it was no longer pointed exactly at Earth, and for a few moments we had a radio blackout in relation to our planet regarding the Voyager probes, okay?

[00:22:05]It orients itself based on stars, right? On stars. Yes, stars. Ex.

[00:22:11]It must be very distant stars, right?

[00:22:13]So there wouldn't be a problem with parallax, right?

[00:22:15]Stars. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I did n't want to mix things up too much so as not to confuse people, but people [laughs] But I, I don't know if you remember, Zurita, or if you know this information, but the Voyager probes' cameras are no longer functional, okay? They are no longer activated by energy due to energy issues. Exactly, right? It's something we can even discuss, but ah, they did an experiment with a NASA probe that still has plenty of energy, which is New Horizons, right, which explored Pluto. True.

[00:22:51]It's not at the same colossal distance as Voyager, but they activated the New Horizons camera and took a picture of a star field in Proxima Centauri.

[00:23:04]It was from Proxima Centauri, wasn't it? I think so. And they took the same picture here from Earth. There was a difference in parallax, okay?

[00:23:12]Uh-huh.

[00:23:13]Regarding the position of the New Horizons star. I imagine that for Voeger, this difference is even more noticeable because it's at a greater distance, right?

[00:23:25]This project was very interesting.

[00:23:27]It was a NASA program that involved amateur astronomers from all over the world.

[00:23:32]They photographed Proxima Centauri, right?

[00:23:39]The same image that New Horizons was going to take, and they wanted to compare the images obtained from distant places in the solar system, right? It's perfect.

[00:23:50]The parallax was very significant.

[00:23:52]We don't get this type of parallax with any other star, not such a large parallax with any other star from terrestrial observations, right?

[00:24:01]Zita, I think it's worth giving an explanation of what parallax is for everyone, right? To give some context.

[00:24:08]That's true. Uh-huh.

[00:24:09]Right? Parallax, folks, uh, [snoring] think of it this way, you, uh, your vision, and it's programmed to perceive the depth, the distance of things... Starting from both eyes, okay? So, you automatically measure parallax when you have both eyes healthy. You put a finger here in front of you, observe what's in the background with one eye, right? When you observe with the other eye, the vision is different. So you perceive depth because of this difference in vision between the two eyes. It's the same principle used, for example, in 3D cinema, where you receive those special glasses and you see two distinct images, one for each eye, right? And the fusion of the two images gives you the sensation of depth, okay? Our terrestrial observations measure the parallax of nearby stars, right, measuring them at different times of the year, when the Earth is in a different position, right? As if each moment of the year were an eye we were looking at that star. And that's why we can't see it, right?

[00:25:26]New Horizons was beyond Pluto's orbit when we did this simulation, right? This test, and it's a parallax that... We can't, at any point, here on Earth, right?

[00:25:39]Yes, yes. We basically had to use a great reference to make this experiment happen, right? I put, I put on the screen now, Zita, a kind of animation that NASA provides, so we have the perspective of Voyager's action at this moment.

[00:26:01]Voyager 1, right?

[00:26:03]Voyager 1. Exactly. Voyager 1. And we can see the whole solar system from far away. It's incredible. Incredible. There's a question here that you have the answer to. What is the approximate speed of the probes today? The question from José Roberto Trevisan.

[00:26:24]Well, José Roberto, it depends on the probe, right?

[00:26:27]There's a difference in speed depending on the probe, right? Voyager 1 was launched last compared to Voyager 2. Yes, there's that controversy there, okay? That's the bug, right? Because probe number two was launched first... That's the first probe, right? But that happened.

[00:26:49]Even so, Voyager, despite being launched about two weeks after Voyager number two, is farther away because it's faster.

[00:27:02]Today, let me check my notes here, I don't remember the exact number, but it's 61,000 km/h, right? 61,500 km/h, right?

[00:27:13]uh, in relation to the Sun, and Voyager 2, which was launched first, but is behind in distance, at 55,300 km/h in relation to the Sun, okay? They have what we call escape velocity, right? They have enough speed to overcome the gravitational force of the solar system and wander through the galaxy indefinitely, right? However, they don't have enough speed to overcome the escape velocity of the Milky Way, okay? So, it will never leave the Milky Way, it will remain stuck there indefinitely, right? Until Voyager arrives in the billions of years. For years.

[00:27:59]Yes, that's it. That's it. If it doesn't collide with anything until then, right?

[00:28:03]And Alexandro, when we think about Voidia, at least in my time, right? I'm a little more experienced than you, let's say.

[00:28:15][laughs] We think about those images, right, which were our references, right, images of the giant planets of the solar system, right, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus. Uh, [snoring] In your opinion, which observations most surprised scientists during encounters with these giant planets?

[00:28:41]Wow, that's a difficult question, Zurita.

[00:28:44]There were so many images, so many, so many images. But I think I could mention the image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, right, which they recorded, right?

[00:28:59]We had one of the first close glimpses of this great storm. I believe that this was one of the most striking photos.

[00:29:10]Look at the images we're seeing there.

[00:29:13]She—I don't recall the name of that shadow effect on Saturn's rings right now—but that was also one of the most bizarre phenomena, let's say, that it ended up recording there.

[00:29:27]But I think what makes the mission more... I wouldn't even say special, but it gained a deeper history, was precisely related to the recording of the outermost planets, right? We're talking about Uranus and Neptune, the giant ice planets, right? Because those were the first clear images we had of these worlds. We didn't know exactly what these planets looked like before the visits of these two probes, right? So, I'd bet that it's precisely the photos of the ice giants.

[00:30:10]Uh-huh. Definitely, right? In my humble opinion.

[00:30:14]Now, there was something interesting in this process that, shortly before the Voyagers, there were the Pioneer probes, the pioneers.

[00:30:26]And I think it was Pioneer 10 that, when passing through the Saturn system... It noticed the presence of a methane atmosphere on Titan, a methane atmosphere and even oceans of liquid methane on Titan. And then the Voyager 1 probe was diverted, right? Its trajectory ended up being diverted to pass by Titan, right?

[00:30:59]In that approach to Saturn, in fact, these images here, look, are images of Titan taken by Voyager.

[00:31:09]Oh, and forgive me if I 'm wrong, but that wasn't why it was launched last. I think it was... No, I remember reading somewhere that the reason it was launched was to make that passage. Yes, but the fact is that this change of trajectory took it off the path of Uranus and Neptune. I think it would have passed by Pluto, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:31:39]Wow, I didn't know it had the idea of ​​passing by Pluto, but it ended up leaving the plane of the solar system and being thrown onto a more... It's tilted relative to the plane of the solar system, okay? But that was perhaps the most important deviation in the history of the Voyager missions, because what it recorded on Titan even motivated the creation of the Cassini mission, which visited both the Saturn system and, mainly, sent a probe to the surface of Titan. So, I think it's one of NASA's most fantastic missions today, okay?

[00:32:32]Because I'm talking about Cassini, because what we saw of Saturn while it was there was literally out of this world, right?

[00:32:45][laughs] That's right.

[00:32:47]And another interesting fact, which we've already started talking about regarding Voyager, is that, just to clarify, Denei, some of the images are real and others are NASA animations, okay? This video is part of a 1970s documentary made by NASA, okay?

[00:33:11]So, some come with real images and others... Well, they're just animations, okay? Poorly made. I mean, for the time it was excellent, right?

[00:33:25]For the time it was phenomenal, man. Phenomenal.

[00:33:30]Yeah. But getting back to the subject, one of the things that was most iconic for NASA for this mission was precisely the golden record, right? The golden records that were sent, right, with the Voyager probes, right? We have the two sides of the record, right? Actually, it's a cover, I think it's the cover, and the record below, right?

[00:34:00]And that's where the beauty, the poetry of Calceiga is, sent on this space probe, right? In fact, the golden record was planned by both Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, right, who studied the possibilities of life in our galaxy, right?

[00:34:24]Yes, yes. And the idea, despite the low chance of finding it, is to send a message to other civilizations exploring this region of the galaxy.

[00:34:38]They might find Voyager in the future, possibly very distant, right, Alexandre?

[00:34:45]Yes, in the very distant and very unlikely future, okay? I don't want to be discouraging for you guys, but we 're talking about a shot in the dark, basically a shot in the darkest possible darkness you can imagine in your mind right now. Why would I say something, Zerita? No, I'd just say that it's easier for us to find a needle in a haystack the size of planet Earth than for an extraterrestrial to find Void Earth in the next few million years.

[00:35:22]Maybe, maybe, maybe the sound of Void Earth will become a trace of some civilization out there. [laughs] Uh, it would have a better chance if it had been sent in a specific direction, right?

[00:35:38]Towards some star with a possible possibility of having planets with life. That's something I was going to say, right? Yes, that's it. That's exactly what I was going to say, because basically none of the Voyagers will actually pass very close to a A star that we know of, that has potentially habitable planets, right? At least thousands and thousands of years from now, right? NASA has even released information a while ago about which stars it will pass close to in the next few thousands of years, okay? We're talking about passing, for example, at a distance of 2 light-years from Sirius, for example, right? So, even though it's closer than we are to Sirius, in fact, right? We're talking about the planet Earth today being 8 light-years away from Sirius. It will pass at 2. Two is less than eight, OK? But it's still a very large distance for a possible alien civilization to encounter Voja's action, okay?

[00:36:49]We can no longer see Voja's action in space, not even with the best telescope that exists on planet Earth; if we pointed it there, we wouldn't see any point of light, because it's already immersed in darkness. The sunlight that reaches Voja's sound today is no longer there and already mixes with it. Most of the stars in the sky, right? It's the brightest star for it. Sure, it still is, but like, it's not even comparable to what we have here at our distance. It starts there. It's a grain of sand. The Earth is already a grain of sand. The sound of the moon is that grain of sand, still microscopically crushed, right? So, uh-huh.

[00:37:31]You stop there. It's a symbolic idea to put the disc there, right, put it on the probe and all that. It's a symbolic idea, because what if it happens, but the chance of that happening in our generation, in future generations, is very low. Very low. Oh, you can put millions of years there and the chance is still too small.

[00:37:54]It's a small chance, if there's anyone out there, right, to find it. A conversation that many people think is risky, but it's not risky because of these distances that don't separate us from any other civilization, right?

[00:38:07]Yes, yes, yes. And Carl Sagan and Frank Drake put it there in that lower left part....from the album cover, the location of the solar system. And which planet, right? In our case, it would be the third planet from the Sun, right?...that would be the origin of this space probe, okay? He gave the complete address, okay?... of...of...of [laughs] Earth.

[00:38:39]Yes, yes, yes.

[00:38:40]For any alien who found this in the future, okay?

[00:38:44]It's based on pulsars, right? If this, these lines there, they are lines that put the distance to, I think 17, if I'm not mistaken, 17 pulsars, right? Uh, known, visible from Earth, okay?

[00:39:02]He was heavily criticized, right? He 's still heavily criticized today for putting Earth's location on the album cover. [laughs] But guys, it's very improbable. It's been the subject of many science fiction films. Yes, it is.

[00:39:18]The thing is, if this is ever found, human civilization probably won't exist anymore, right? For us, when we say that we've existed for a few million years... Years, right? Not even human beings, I don't know if we could call them that, right?

[00:39:37]Our ancestors, but our ancestors, the australopithecines, right, who came down from the trees about 4 million years ago.

[00:39:47]Man, 4 million years is nothing for this spacecraft to be found, okay? That's right.

[00:39:52]So, very likely, I'll say maybe there is life on Earth, but it will be completely different from what we know today.

[00:40:01]Zorita, there's something interesting for people to grasp right away here. Now let's go. Our species, Homo sapiens, we'll put it this way, very old records. I know it's not a precise number, some defend one number, others defend another, but there must be about 280,000 years, okay? 200,000 years or so. OK. Great, right? Regarding Voja, there are calculations that say it will take at least 300,000 years to reach the outer edge of the cloud. Horte, you understand?

[00:40:37]My God.

[00:40:38]So, it's longer than our own species has existed on planet Earth, even just to officially leave the solar system, okay? Just to give you some context, nowadays they say that the Voer cloud, the Voer mission, has already left the solar system. That's not quite right, okay?

[00:40:56]Uh, it left the sphere of the Sun's magnetic influence, okay? It's leaving that. But there are those who argue that the solar system is much larger than that.

[00:41:08]Interstellar space doesn't start exactly there; it leaves the Sun's magnetic protection, right? It leaves the heliosphere, and the solar system basically extends to a very large distance where the Horte cloud is, right?

[00:41:26]Almost a cloud's distance away. So, my friends, it's longer than our own species has existed on Earth, even just to touch that outer part of the garden cloud. AND.

[00:41:41]And it starts losing speed, right? As it moves away from the sun, it also has all of that involved.

[00:41:47]Well, so, she's becoming more present, I included Marcola's question here, partly because he's questioning this, right? I had it saved here, you know, so we could answer. So, you're absolutely right, because it hasn't passed through the solar system yet, it's very far from there, but it has passed through, this so- called heliosphere, the area of magnetic influence of the sun, is very controversial.

[00:42:12]Well, there's just one thing, yes there is, there's a question from Adenei here that I left and ended up forgetting to answer.

[00:42:20]The record is gold, so it's meant to last a long time, right? Gold won't oxidize, it won't be affected by space weather, right? I don't know about micrometeorite showers, do you? But it's made of gold to last.

[00:42:34]Is he scheduled for today? It's one of the things I have in my head that's curious. I wonder how he's doing today?

[00:42:40]Yeah, probably pretty much the same, right, as it was. Uh-huh.

[00:42:43]When he left here.

[00:42:45]But anyway, what I was saying, Zurita, just to finish up here, is about this issue of the hosphere. The heliosphere, folks, is the Sun's magnetic bubble, so to speak. The Earth doesn't have that kind of magnetic field, does it? The sun is kind of like that, you know. Yes, that's almost it. So, the heliosphere, it covers a whole distance and is where the waves have already passed. She kind of [snored] came out of that magnetic influence of the Sun, the magnetic protection of the Sun. And the plasma detectors that we have here on the probe's instruments detected an increase, you know, in radiation, you know, coming from distant stars. And then they detected it, right, they came to the conclusion that it left the solar system. A lot of people say that, but it's not quite like that, is it? Because, as we've already discussed, the solar system is much bigger than that, right? There is a whole sphere of comet debris at a much greater distance. They're going to put on the Blue Pen song. Very good. [laughs] [sighing] Eh, Márcio, they didn't put the song from "Caneta Azul" because it didn't exist at the time, but they put that song by... Ah, now I remember the author's name, right? Daddy's little darling is so cute, isn't she? That song is there.

[00:44:06]This one's on the album.

[00:44:07]That is precisely our contribution.

[00:44:11]Yeah. AND. Well, the interesting thing is that in that part on the album cover, right? It has instructions, uh, diagrams that instruct the alien who recovers this record on how to build a record player, okay? so I can play this record. But this record player, right? From the moment he builds it, he'll have access not only to some music, sounds of the Earth, right?

[00:44:36]I think we can even play some of these sounds here by the end of the program, for us to listen to.

[00:44:42]And images too, right? He brought some images that he encoded that may be from an incredibly advanced intelligence, right? They can translate that signal into images so he can see what we, human beings, are like, how we live, how we lived here on Earth in 1970.

[00:45:09]So, this disc brings a lot of information, right, for those who retrieve it in the very distant future.

[00:45:21]So it is. Well, there's a lot to it, isn't there? Lots of data about us there on the Voyager disc. Just a quick fun fact: Voyager isn't the only one that carries this information, okay? You mentioned the Pioneer mission, right? Oh, they 're also carrying a sign with a drawing of human beings, which caused quite a bit of controversy at the time.

[00:45:42]Yes, they censored it.

[00:45:43]That's absurd, absolutely absurd.

[00:45:45]The Pioneer 10 and 11 also have the little plate, right, from Ourinha, right?

[00:45:50]Yeah, they put up a drawing of two human beings, a man and a woman, right? But they're drawings, they're engravings, you know? They are cosmic nudes.

[00:46:01]Cosmic nudes [laughter]. Perfect.

[00:46:03]Perfect.

[00:46:03]Nudes for aliens. AND.

[00:46:06]And then people started nagging, like, "You don't even know someone and you're already sending nudes, man." Well [laughs] that didn't work out, did it? At least pay for the jet ski, right? I had to pay for the jet ski at least.

[00:46:18]Yes, but it's because of that controversy that happened, that was generated there, uh, with the conservative people of that time, right? The Voyager golden record doesn't have those images of humans, which even served to contextualize the size and scale of the humans; it came on the side of the probe.

[00:46:51]Yes, it was a very interesting little sign. Anyone who wants can Google it, then I don't know if we can show it here, if YouTube will [laughs] give us the cosmic nudes. But that's it.

[00:47:07]José Roberto Trevisan is asking about the energy issue, right? And we were supposed to address that as well, right? They're running out of power, aren't they? And when they finally lose the ability to communicate with Earth in the next decade, maybe even sooner, right? Ah, they will continue traveling silently through the Milky Way for millions of years. Correct?

[00:47:32]My real question is, is there any technology predicted for the coming decades? I don't think the whole image, the whole question, fit, right?

[00:47:43]For the next few decades, suddenly, I do n't know if that's it, right? But to send, how can I put it, rescue these ships, or maybe send another one just like them.

[00:47:58]I don't see the point in rescuing him, do I? Because the idea is precisely to let them wander around for as long as possible, right? As far as they can go, right? And regarding the energy from the action of the waves, they lose 4 W per year, right, the generators.

[00:48:14]So there will come a time when there will only be enough energy, just enough energy to keep the transmitter on, to send beeps saying: "Look, I'm here, I'm alive," but all the scientific instruments will be turned off. Of the 10 that were sent today, that were sent at the time for Voyager, I think today Voyager 2 has four and Voyager 1 has three activated, planned to be turned off this year, right?

[00:48:50]To be left only with the transmitter.

[00:48:53]So it's a smart choice, okay? Because we're taking advantage of the fact that they're still working, everything is perfectly fine, and let's see how far we can communicate, because look, for the probe to work, it doesn't just have to turn on the transmitter and it's already working, it 's not just that. We have to remember that there are heaters inside, it requires a large amount of energy to function, right? And even more than that, it's a technology from the 70s. It's impressive how they still work today. So, let's see....to how far they've reached. If it ends now, we can already applaud because the mission was a true success, right? A true success.

[00:49:43]Then Wilson says that they use nuclear energy. That's a good point, right? Including plutonium-238, isn't that right?

[00:49:52]238, right? They use RTGs, both waves use these radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which use the heat from the radioactive decay of uranium-238 to generate electricity, right? And today these generators are quite degraded, they are already losing about 4 watts per year of energy, they are quite degraded. Why?

[00:50:21]Because at the distance the probes are from the sun today, you can't use solar panels to recharge the batteries, okay?

[00:50:30]We depend on generators of the type Wilson mentioned here, RTGs.

[00:50:37]And it's not just the Voyer probes that use them, okay? The rovers also use them. powered by RTGs.

[00:50:45]Uh-huh. Just so you have an idea, the Luce probe that was recently sent to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids is the most distant probe we have using solar power. And it has gigantic panels because at that distance, five astronomical units from the Sun, solar energy is already very inefficient, right? It arrives with a very low capacity, so it needs enormous panels to get a little bit of energy, okay? That's why these probes that are in deep space, beyond the orbit of Mars, almost all of them use some type of nuclear generator or batteries with a limited lifespan, right? But energy conservation is always crucial, right?

[00:51:41]As was the case with the Hughes Lander, the Cassim Mission, batteries with a limited lifespan. In the case of Mars, there's something interesting that the rovers use: RTGs. People have had rovers that used solar panels, but it always went wrong.

[00:51:59]And look how interesting, it worked up to a certain point, but the mission would stop working prematurely because Mars often has a very turbulent atmosphere, full of dust and such, and that hides the solar panel, covers the solar panel. This causes a loss of energy efficiency.

[00:52:20]This is solved with RTGs, which are present on Voyager, because they don't depend on the sun, they generate their own energy.

[00:52:29]Uh-huh. It 's really, really, really cool.

[00:52:34]Well, looking at this history, what do you consider, Alexandro, the greatest legacy of Voyager for astronomy and space exploration?

[00:52:50]Legacy, well, legacy of... Zorita, today there are many difficult questions because it's impossible to define just one thing. There are many things, right?

[00:53:01]Look, Zorita, if we were to talk about the discoveries, we'd be here all night, right? This leaves a truly impressive legacy. But I think... One of the things that will forever be remembered in the mission, making it one of the most famous missions in history, I think, was the Blue Dot image, right? It's impossible to talk about the Voice without mentioning the Blue Dot. It was a very important legacy that Carl Sagan left for this mission, okay? Because this photo wouldn't exist if it weren't for Carl Sagan, right? I don't know if you have it to show this, can I show it on screen now?

[00:53:43]Okay. But it's a photo, folks, that was taken shortly before NASA decided to shut down the probe's camera, okay? Remember that the probe had its equipment turned off as time passed, as it no longer made sense to keep it on, okay? Look at this image, that bright little dot there is us, okay?

[00:54:09]Our entire planet, Earth, everything, and of course, from the time it was recorded, right? But everything that ever existed, everyone who was born, lived, and lives on that pale blue dot that the Voice recorded 6 billion kilometers away.

[00:54:27]From a distance, if my memory serves me right, okay? That bright line you see on the screen, that's a ray of sunlight creating a flicker on the lens.

[00:54:40]This photo wasn't going to exist.

[00:54:42]Carl Segan insisted that NASA turn the camera this way before turning it off, right? And then, accidentally, I don't think so, but we can say that Carl Segan thought of everything, he captured one of the most important photos in the history of space exploration, because it's at that point where wars happen, it's where all our problems are concentrated, right, and where we realize that our existence only exists, it's only possible, so to speak, because of that grain of sand suspended in a ray of sunlight, as Carl Segan himself says in his own words. So, Zorita, I think in terms of legacy, man, and I could talk about the discoveries, of course, we ca n't leave that aside, but this photo... Uh-huh... this photo cemented the mission, it cemented the mission in the history of humanity.

[00:55:45]If humanity... philosophically, right, man? If humanity exists from now on... 1000 years, this photo will still be in history books. You can be sure of that.

[00:55:57]It's true, isn't it? Something that went down in history, that became a landmark, and the poem that Csegan wrote about it, right? I think it's impressive, huh? Do you think we'll have another mission with as much impact as the Voyager missions in the near future, Alexandro?

[00:56:20]I don't think so. The interstellar impact of Voyager, no, because in terms of impact we have several, in my opinion, like, impact on space exploration, several missions, right, that are truly memorable, but specifically interstellar impact, because what weighs heavily in the name Voyager, the Voyager program, is the fact that they became interstellar missions.

[00:56:48]They stopped being just missions that wandered through the solar system in our vicinity and today they are venturing outside our neighborhood, right? So I think not in the near future, right?

[00:57:05]Uh-huh. In the near future, no, maybe at some point, several decades from now and more decades and more Decades later, when a project that's been around for quite some time finally gets off the ground, who knows, right? It's the Breakthrough Star Shot, which involves sending microprobes to Alpha Centauri to take pictures from there. Maybe then we'll have something on par with the current trends, right? Because we're hoping. We're hoping. The question is whether it will get off the ground, right? It exists, but getting it off the ground is another story.

[00:57:47]Alexandro, tell me something. You over there, over there, tell me if you 're hearing this audio.

[00:57:56]Let me see. I heard better. No, I 'm not. It's not coming through. Okay, I'm going to share it again here, I must have shared the audio so we can hear it before the astronomical images of the week, so we can hear the audio, right, of what was sent, right, on the golden record.

[00:58:24]Let me share it again here. I must also share the audio from the system.

[00:58:35]See if it's coming through now.

[00:58:39]Are you hearing the audio? Screen? It didn't appear for me now. I can't see the screen. That 's right. Let's listen. Let's see. It's still not playing, strangely.

[00:58:55]Okay. I can try with mine here.

[00:58:58]Let's see if it works. I can try with mine here. Check it out. Let me. Let me share the same screen. Let's see. I shared it with the audio. And then you tell me if you can hear it there. Done. The audio is right down here, right? No, it's in Portuguese. You have to put it in English, right?

[00:59:17]That's it.

[00:59:17]For it to appear.

[00:59:20]Let it appear.

[00:59:22]Yes, there are also some of the images, right, that were sent.

[00:59:28]Okay, now it's playing.

[00:59:36]Peace and happiness, Zita, if you want to speak, you can leave it. Greetings in 55 different languages.

[00:59:52]Hello.

[00:59:54]I think that's good. Alexandro, also show the images that are further down, right, which were encoded images and sent in the video, on the disc as well, okay?

[01:00:07]Yes. Look, so there's the person shopping, there's an image of Jupiter. I hope they don't think that It's our planet, and they end up being crushed by the planet's intense gravity.

[01:00:17][laughs] An advertisement, right, Arecibo, right? Look at the radio telescope, man.

[01:00:25]And he even put a metric reference here, right? 305 m.

[01:00:30]Yeah, someone's going to have to explain what a meter is, right?

[01:00:34]Yeah.

[01:00:34]Wow, imagine, imagine if the aliens use feet? That complicates things, right?

[01:00:39]It's the [laughs] interstellar imperial unit.

[01:00:46]Look, images of Earth. Yeah, it's really a disc with fantastic content.

[01:00:52]Oh, how cool, the amount of gases that exist, the proportion of gases in Earth's atmosphere too. CO2, O2, H2O.

[01:01:01]I believe that's it, right? You know, I once saw an article talking about techniques that could be developed from artificial intelligence to detect alien messages in the signals from Arecibo, Goldstone, and other radio telescopes.

[01:01:24]Man, sensational. Imagine if they found something lost?

[01:01:28]If they found it. Something lost, would it be?

[01:01:30]Oh, and look, there's space nudity, okay?

[01:01:33]No, we can't leave that out. Look there.

[01:01:34]Wow, but this shoe, huh?

[01:01:37]Goodness gracious, man. [laughs] Here's the explanation of the diagrams that exist.

[01:01:45]Uh-huh. Very well, folks. We're reaching the end of the program, and as always, we also have the astronomical images of the week, right? Every week we bring two images that stood out in the past week. And this week we have images of tremendous scientific importance.

[01:02:08]So let's check out the astronomical images of the week.

[01:02:15]The first image is an unprecedented record of the asteroid Torifun. At the beginning of the month, the asteroid was flown over by the Japanese robotic probe Raiabusa 2, which in 2018 had visited and collected samples from another asteroid, Rio Gu.

[01:02:28]To terrestrial telescopes, Torifun looked like an elongated asteroid, but when Raiabusa 2 passed by it, It was discovered that it is actually a contact binary resulting from the soft impact between two distinct asteroids.

[01:02:41]Besides the two lobes, Torifune exhibits many large rocky blocks and no evident craters, indicating that its surface is a pile of debris. Raiabusa 2 now continues its journey through the solar system and should encounter another asteroid, 1998 Ky26, but only in 2031. The second image is a series of images showing the exoplanet Beta Pictoris B over more than a decade. The planet, discovered through direct images taken by the VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile and also by the James Webb, is the third to be discovered orbiting Beta Pictoris, the second brightest star in the constellation Pictoris, located 63.4 light-years away. The star would have been at the center of the images, but it was obscured by a mask or digitally subtracted during processing. In the first images, the exoplanet was hidden in the glare of another, Beta Pictoris D. Another image was needed. The digital process used to digitally subtract the brightest planet to reveal Beta Pictoris B, one of the faintest discovered through direct observation.

[01:03:52]The technological moment we're living in is fantastic, isn't it? Can you imagine having the ability to send a probe to visit an asteroid about 400 meters long?

[01:04:07]That 's incredibly precise, right, Zurita?

[01:04:10]That's where I am, and at the same time, in these images of Beta Pictoris B, you see that at the bottom we have the images that were obtained with a mask, which is like putting a coronagraph in front of the lens to darken the part where the bright star is. Then we can observe the faint planet next to it, right? And in the case of the James Webb Space Telescope, it's fantastic because they have what are called micro-shutters, right? They can place several, as if they were several coronagraphs, in front....of the objects they want to exclude, that they want to mask, okay? And then they can observe, right, the planets, right, orbiting directly, a direct observation of planets orbiting stars, in the case of Beta Beta Pictorex, 63.4 light-years away.

[01:05:26]A moment in astronomical technology that is truly impressive, right? What we can see, right? Our eyes on the universe are special, right, Alexandro?

[01:05:39]Yes, Zurita. It's living in a moment, it's very good to be alive to see all this happening, okay? It's a truly memorable moment. Hmm, I think, of course, the image of the asteroid is simply sensational. All those pebbles around the object, looking like they're finely attached to it, that any little push could release them. It's fantastic. But one of the things I think most, I think if I could choose, to have an astronomical image of something specific, I would perhaps ask the universe to give us one. A clear image of an exoplanet, right?

[01:06:24]These direct images are simply phenomenal. Now, curiosity arises to know what this world looks like, right? You see this bright little dot there, and you start imagining, wow, is it similar to Jupiter? Is it more similar to Saturn? What will its atmosphere be like in terms of planets most similar to Earth?

[01:06:47]Does it have water, clouds, plants? What will this planet look like? I, at least, get very carried away with these hypotheses because it would be interesting to have a very clear image of such a distant world.

[01:07:04]And one interesting thing in this image, we see a line, right, cutting diagonally across all the images. This line is from the planetary disk, right, from what exists there in the star system, right? It's a cloud of debris, of asteroids, right, that end up being recorded, right, reflecting the light of the star.

[01:07:25]And then, you know what just came to my mind, Alexandro?

[01:07:29]Yes.

[01:07:31]This... The esoplanet detected in these images somewhat resembles the Blue Dot, right? Those little brushstrokes that were recorded in the Voyager probe images, right, when it was already moving away from Neptune.

[01:07:54]Really, look at this, how we've evolved our technology, right?

[01:07:58]It's like the Blue Dot, right, at record distances, let's say, 63 light-years away, is n't it? As I said, it's simply fantastic to be living in the era we 're living in now, right? We're breaking record after record in terms of observed galaxies at absurd distances, as is the case with the James Webb, where each photo it takes of deep space breaks a record. So it's fantastic in the mystery of space. Yes. Yes.

[01:08:38]Ah, it has to be done, because recording all this is only fair, right?

[01:08:43]Uh-huh. Yes.

[01:08:45]That's right. Well, we're unfortunately reaching the end of the program, but before I want to thank Alexandro Mes once again for... Your presence here enriches the space perspective with such precise and interesting information. Sound of the voxandro, thank you very much, and feel free to share your thoughts.

[01:09:05]Hey Zurita, what's this? I'm the one who should thank you for the invitation once again, okay? I 'm very happy to be here with you talking about another great topic like Voer probes. And once again, I 'm ready to invite me whenever you need me, feel free, and thank you very much for the invitation and to everyone who watched here as well, okay? Thank you very much for your attention, for dedicating this time to listening to us here, okay? Thank you very much.

[01:09:37]Subscribe here to Olhar Digital, follow Olhar Espaço every Friday, okay? With Marcelo Zurita, which is fantastic, always very cool topics. Thank you very much, Zurita! And thank you to those who watched as well.

[01:09:52]Thanks, Alexandro. I also echo Alexandro's words.

[01:09:57]Folks, if you want to delve deeper into this and other topics... There are many other astronomy topics, the Mysteries of Space channel, right, always with very interesting and more detailed information than what we discussed here, on such an extensive subject as this, right?

[01:10:14]And by the way, we're almost at a million subscribers, you know? We're 8,000 subscribers away from reaching it. Hey, folks, let's also exchange subscribers here, look, look, so we can hit 1 million together.

[01:10:26]Hit 1 million together. That's it. That's it.

[01:10:29]Very good.

[01:10:31]Finally, I also thank you all for being here, for joining us on this astronomical journey that we undertake together every Friday. We have a date next Friday, always at 9 pm, Brasília time. Olhar Digital, the future passes first here. Have a great weekend everyone.

[01:10:50]And until next time.

[01:11:24][music] Zurita is over.