The creator of one of the world’s most famous mysteries is giving obsessive fans a new clue. From a report: Kryptos, a sculpture in a courtyard at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., holds an encrypted message that has not fully yielded to attempts to crack it. It’s been nearly 30 years since its tall scroll of copper with thousands of punched-through letters was set in place. Three of the four passages of the sculpture have been decrypted (the first, though unacknowledged at the time, was solved by a team from the National Security Agency). But after nearly three decades, one brief passage remains uncracked. And that has been a source of delight and consternation to thousands of people around the world. The sculptor, Jim Sanborn, has been hounded for decades by codebreaking enthusiasts. And he has twice provided clues to move the community of would-be solvers along, once in 2010 and again in 2014. Now he is offering another clue. The last one, he says. It is a word: “NORTHEAST.”

Why do people care so much about a puzzle cut into a sheet of copper in a courtyard after so much time? It’s not just that the piece itself has a kind of brooding, powerful beauty, or the fact that it has been referred to in novels by the thriller writer Dan Brown. It is something deeper, something that involves the nature of the human mind, said Craig Bauer, a professor of mathematics at York College of Pennsylvania and a former scholar in residence at the N.S.A.’s Center for Cryptologic History. “We have many problems that are difficult to resolve — intimidating, perhaps even scary,” he said. “It gives people great pleasure to pick up on one that they think they have a chance of solving.” […] Why now? Did we mention Mr. Sanborn is 74? Holding on to one of the world’s most enticing secrets can be stressful. Some would-be codebreakers have appeared at his home. Many felt they had solved the puzzle, and wanted to check with Mr. Sanborn. Sometimes forcefully. Sometimes, in person. NPR spoke with Sanborn (4-min).

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Source: Slashdot – This Sculpture Holds a Decades-Old C.I.A. Mystery. And Now, Another Clue.

Last Saturday, Voyager 2’s software shut down all five of the scientific instruments onboard because the spacecraft was consuming way too much power. Engineers at NASA don’t know what triggered this energy spike and are currently trying to get the interstellar probe, which was launched in 1977, back to normal operations. Its primary mission was supposed to last five years. In 2018, it officially left the solar system. In order to keep the spacecraft running properly 42 years later, NASA has had to carefully manage power consumption for the instruments and the probe’s heaters. From a report: About 11.5 billion miles away, Voyager 2 was supposed to make a scheduled 360-degree rotation that would help calibrate its magnetometer (used to measure magnetic fields). The spacecraft delayed this move for still unknown reasons, leaving two other internal systems running at high power. The onboard software decided to offset this power deficit by shutting down the five scientific instruments still working. NASA engineers shut down one of the power-hungry systems and turned the science instruments back on. But the spacecraft is still not cleared for normal operations and is not collecting any new data for now. […] It takes 17 hours for data from Earth to get to Voyager 2, and vice versa. This lag means it will take several days to solve the spacecraft’s woes. As it is, the radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which powers the spacecraft, is only expected to last another five years before the plutonium-238 can no longer provide enough heat to power the probe’s instruments, so Voyager 2 is on its last hurrah anyway.

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Source: Slashdot – NASA is Trying To Save Voyager 2 After a Power Glitch Shut Down Its Instruments