The US space agency NASA says it has received readable data from its Voyager 1 spacecraft for the first time in about five months. This comes after communications with the probe were disrupted.
NASA announced that its mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on Saturday.
In 1977, Voyager 1 was launched to explore Jupiter and Saturn. It excited many space enthusiasts by sending clear images of patterns on Jupiter's surface and Saturn's rings.
Voyager 1 left the solar system and is now traveling about 24 billion kilometers from Earth. That is farther away from Earth than any other human-made object.
The probe continued transmitting observation information, but it stopped sending back readable data last November, owing to a glitch in one of its computer systems.
The team says a radio signal takes about 22 and a half hours to reach Voyager 1. It reportedly takes the same amount of time for a signal to come back to Earth.
One of the team members, Dr. Linda Spilker, spoke with NHK. She said she is excited about being able to communicate with the spacecraft once again. Spilker said, "It is like seeing an old friend after a long time apart."
She noted that the next step will be to adjust parts of the software, so that the spacecraft can return scientific data again. She added that she is looking forward to seeing new scientific data about what is happening in interstellar space.