Despite what capitalists would like you to believe technology hasn’t changed all that much in 50 years. Sure there have been some novel technologies more recently like blue LEDs or CRISPR-Cas9. But the real advance since the 70s has been in miniaturization, allowing more things to be put in the same amount of space as before.

Also one point of clarification, Voyager is a space probe, not a satellite. Satellites orbit things and can be naturally occurring.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Technically even the Voyager probes are orbiting something. It isn't a planet, and not even the sun anymore. It is orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

But yeah, probe is the more accurate term.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

I had a feeling somebody was going to point that out…

[–] recked_wralph@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fair. I’m still curious how it detects a single atom in the vacuum of space though

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As to the sensing mechanism specifically I am not sure other than that it has to do with detecting a differential in energy, but the sensor in question is the Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument.

[–] recked_wralph@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Thanks!