Voyager 2 has been in space for 45 years. NASA just found a way to keep it alive for another 3, despite it being 12 billion miles from Earth.

• NASA has hacked a backup source of power to keep Voyager 2 working.
• The switch should keep the probe, which launched in 1977, alive for another three years.
• Together, Voyager 1 and 2 have traveled further than any other spacecraft.

Voyager 2's demise has been postponed after NASA found a way to hack a backup source of power to keep the probe going until 2026. 

Voyager 1 and 2 have provided crucial scientific information in their 45 years of spaceflight.

Today, the probes are traveling in interstellar space, 12 and 14 billion miles away from Earth. That's further than any spacecraft or human-made object has gone before.