Nasa detects signal from Voyager 2 after losing contact due to wrong command

Heartbeat' signal from probe, now 12bn miles away, picked up after flight control mistakenly pointed its antenna away from Earth

Efforts to re-establish contact with Nasa's Voyager 2 probe have received a boost after the space agency detected a heartbeat" signal from the far-flung probe.

Mission controllers stopped hearing from Voyager 2 more than a week ago after sending a faulty command that tilted its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth. The small change in orientation was enough to cut all contact with the probe.