Jupiter close up as imaged by Voyager 1 Photo Credit/NASA JPL
Sunday marked the 33rd anniversary of NASA’s Voyager I launching, the second of twin spacecraft that conducted historic flyby missions of the solar system’s outermost planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Voyager 2 lifted off on Aug. 20, 1977.
The twin spacecraft, powered by radioisotope thermalelectric generators, are still going strong and now have the honor of being the two most distant manmade objects.
Neptune as photographed by Voyager 2 Photo Credit/NASA JPL
Here’s a summary of the Voyager mission accomplishments provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the two spacecraft were developed, http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/
Both spacecraft carry a “Golden Record,” a plaque that attempts to communicate the diversity of life on Earth, a message to any intelligent civilization that might encounter one of the long running Voyagers in the distant future.
Voyagers I and II carry a golden record with the story of Earth and its inhabitants Photo Credit/NASA JPL