Plasma Science Instrument
In December 2018, NASA announced that Voyager 2 had traveled into interstellar space. However, how did experts at NASA know this? Well, there’s a piece of equipment called a Plasma Science Instrument (or PLS) that makes this possible.
Detecting
Even though Voyager 1’s PLS hadn’t been working since 1980, it was functioning properly for Voyager 2. The device notes the nature of solar wind particles within the heliosphere. The PLS hadn’t detected any solar wind around Voyager 2, which proved that the craft was in interstellar space.