In Pictures: Derby Day devotees, Kenyan style
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/16
In Pictures: Dazzle like Beckham
In Pictures: Weather extremes 2013
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/15
In Pictures: Duchess Kate's royal baby bump
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/14
In Pictures: Keffiyeh is rebel chic
Seen here is a full-scale model of one of the twin Voyager spacecraft, which was sent to explore the giant outer planets in our solar system. Voyager 2 was launched August 20, 1977 followed by the launch of Voyager 1 sixteen days later. Both spacecraft visited Jupiter and Saturn with Voyager 2 continuing its journey to Uranus and Neptune. In spring 1990, Voyager 2 transmitted images looking back across the span of the entire solar system. Both Voyagers continue to explore interstellar space.
Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977, sixteen days before Voyager 1 aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket. Their different flight trajectories caused Voyager 2 to arrive at Jupiter four months later than Voyager 1, thus explaining their numbering. The initial mission plan for Voyager 2 specified visits only to Jupiter and Saturn. The plan was augmented in 1981 to include a visit to Uranus, and again in 1985 to include a flyby of Neptune. After completing the tour of the outer planets in 1989, the Voyager spacecraft began exploring interstellar space. The Voyager mission has been managed by NASA's Office of Space Science and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This view of Jupiter was taken by Voyager 1. This image was taken through color filters and recombined to produce the color image. This photo was assembled from three black and white negatives by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This golden phonograph record was included on both Voyager spacecraft. The contents of the record, sounds of surf, wind, animals, and music, were chosen by a committee chaired by Cornell University's Carl Sagan. The record also contains images of Earth. The golden cover protecting the record (r.) displays diagrams intended to instruct possible extraterrestrials as to playback of the record.
Voyager 2 sent back this stunning image of storms at work in Neptune's windy atmosphere in August 1989. This photograph of Neptune was reconstructed from two images taken by Voyager 2's narrow-angle camera, through the green and clear filters. The image shows three of the features that Voyager 2 photographed during its Neptune flyby.
This picture of Io, Jupiter's innermost Galilean satellite, was taken by Voyager 1 on the morning of March 5, 1979 at a range of 77,100 miles. It is centered at 8 south latitude and 317 longitude. The width of the picture is about 600 miles. The diffuse reddish and orangish colorations are probably surface deposits of sulfur compounds, salts and possibly other volcanic sublimates. The dark spot with the irregular radiating pattern near the bottom of the picture may be a volcanic crater with radiating lava flows.
Voyager mission artwork from 1977 is seen, with instruments and parts labeled.
Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977, from the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida, propelled into space on a Titan/Centaur rocket.
An artist's concept illustrates the positions of the Voyager spacecraft in relation to structures formed around our Sun by the solar wind. Also illustrated is the termination shock, a violent region the spacecraft must pass through before reaching the outer limits of the solar system. At the termination shock, the supersonic solar wind abruptly slows from an average speed of 900,000 to less than 225,000 miles per hour. Beyond the termination shock is the solar system's final frontier, the heliosheath, a vast region where the turbulent and hot solar wind is compressed as it presses outward against the interstellar wind that is beyond the heliopause.
Layers of haze covering Saturn's satellite Titan are seen in this image taken by Voyager 1 on Nov. 12, 1980 at a range of 13,700 miles. The colors are false and are used to show details of the haze that covers Titan. The upper level of the thick aerosol above the satellite's limb appears orange. The divisions in the haze occur at altitudes of 124, 233 and 310 miles above the limb of the moon. JPL manages the Voyager project for NASA's Office of Space Science.
More Space Photos
In Pictures: Derby Day devotees, Kenyan style
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/16
In Pictures: Dazzle like Beckham
In Pictures: Weather extremes 2013
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/15
In Pictures: Duchess Kate's royal baby bump
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/14
In Pictures: Keffiyeh is rebel chic
NASA scientists say that the Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, is still inside our solar system. But the probe's radiation sensors indicate that it has entered a new region of space.
A new paper out today reports that the Voyager 1 spacecraft appears to have traveled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere. However, the data they cite is the same as what NASA Voyager scientists claimed in December 2012 was just a new region at the edge of the solar system that scientists previously didn’t know was there. They called it a “highway” of magnetic particles, shepherding Voyager 1 out into interstellar space, whereas the new paper put out by the American Geophysical Union says Voyager 1 has crossed a “heliocliff” and into interstellar space.
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Derby-Day-devotees-Kenyan-style
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-05-16
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Dazzle-like-Beckham
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Weather-extremes-2013
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Covert-commerce-smugglers-tunnels-at-the-Egypt-and-Gaza-border
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-05-15
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Duchess-Kate-s-royal-baby-bump
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-05-14
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Keffiyeh-is-rebel-chic
/Photo-Galleries/CSM-Galleries/Election2012/Tea-Parties
/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Latin-America-s-fight-against-drugs-and-violence
/Photo-Galleries/Photos-of-the-Day/2013/Photos-of-the-day-05-13