Voyager 1 just bought itself more time — engineers swapped three power-hungry devices for thriftier ones, 15 billion miles from home

NASA's Voyager 1, launched in 1977 and now the most distant human-made object, runs on a slowly fading nuclear power source. In September, its engineers completed a months-long effort to switch off three devices and substitute three lower-power alternatives, stretching the supply so the remaining science instruments can keep working longer than expected. Then, on 20 October, the spacecraft briefly fell silent — and, before the team could even send troubleshooting commands, the connection resolved itself after 48 hours. The oldest, farthest messenger we have is still reporting in.