Nasa has lost contact with its Voyager 2 probe billions of miles away from Earth after sending it the wrong command.

Axar.az reports that the space agency has revealed.

Last month, the spacecraft - exploring the universe since 1977 - tilted its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth after the mistake was made.

As a result, the probe has stopped receiving commands or sending data.

However, a carrier signal from the spacecraft was picked up on Tuesday during Nasa's regular scan of the sky.

The space agency said the signal, which it likened to the probe's "heartbeat", confirmed Voyager 2 was still broadcasting, as engineers had expected.

Nasa said it hopes communication will resume when the probe is due to reset in October.