2 min read November’s Night Sky Notes: Light-Day Away NASA’s Voyager mission took advantage of a once-every-175-year alignment of the outer planets for a grand tour of the solar system. The twin spacecraft revealed details about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – using each planet’s gravity to send them on to the next destination.
Voyager set the stage for such ambitious orbiter missions as Galileo to Jupiter and Cassini to Saturn. Today both Voyager spacecraft continue to return valuable science from the far reaches of our solar system. NASA/JPL-Caltech Twin Travelers In 1977, NASA launched twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year planetary alignment of the four largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Using six gravity assists between them, this Grand Tour gave us up-close views of the gas and ice giants, including several moons. By the 1980s, the two probes went their separate ways at Saturn. As Voyager 2 continu
Voyager set the stage for such ambitious orbiter missions as Galileo to Jupiter and Cassini to Saturn. Today both Voyager spacecraft continue to return valuable science from the far reaches of our solar
NASA/JPL-Caltech Twin Travelers In 1977, NASA launched twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year planetary alignment of the four largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Using six gravity assists between them, this Grand Tour gave us up-close views of the gas and ice giants, including several
By the 1980s, the two probes went their separate ways at Saturn. As Voyager 2 continued toward Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1 grabbed one more portrait of the solar system (excluding Mercury and Mars), including a final image of the pale blue dot we call
The Golden Record Cover NASA/JPL-Caltech Playlist “Hello from the children of planet Earth.” Every good road trip needs some music to match. In this case, each craft carries the Golden Record , a 12-inch phonograph record with spoken greetings in 55 languages, 27 musical tracks, 116 images, and other sounds from