Latest Voyager 2 Stories
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory A gauge on the Voyager home page tracks levels of two of the three key signs scientists believe will appear when the spacecraft leave our solar neighborhood and enter interstellar space. When the three signs are verified, scientists will know that one of the Voyagers has hurtled beyond the magnetic bubble the sun blows around itself, which is known as the heliosphere. The gauge indicates the level of fast-moving charged particles, mainly protons,...
[ Watch the Video: Pioneer 11 Animation and Archive Footage ] Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA is celebrating the 40th birthday of the Pioneer 11 spacecraft. For the past four decades, Pioneer has been hurtling through space, capturing satellite images of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. As its predecessor, Pioneer 10 had launched just over a year before and was the first spacecraft to not only leave the inner Solar System, but make the trip to Jupiter as...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft may have allegedly left the confines of our solar System after 35 years and more than 11 billion miles of traveling through space. Scientists writing in the Geophysical Research Letters claim that they measured drastic changes in radiation levels on August 25, 2012 while the spacecraft was sitting over 11 billion miles away from the Sun. The anomalous cosmic rays (those trapped in the outer heliosphere)...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scientists refer to this new region as a magnetic highway for charged particles because our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. This...
[ Watch the Video ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA announced at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Monday that its Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a region of space no other spacecraft has reached before. After 35 years, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a new region of deep space known as a magnetic highway for charged particles. In this region, our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines....
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Monday, Dec. 3, to discuss the latest findings and travels of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 have been speeding through the outer reaches of our solar system and sending back unprecedented data about the bubble of charged particles around our sun. They were launched in 1977 and have traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft. Reporters will be able to ask questions by...
PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Monday, Dec. 3, to discuss the latest findings and travels of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 have been speeding through the outer reaches of our solar system and sending back unprecedented data about the bubble of charged particles around our sun. They were launched...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online New, exquisitely detailed, high-resolution images of Uranus show off its complex weather patterns and new features of the planet that scientists can't explain yet. Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, is an ice giant composed mainly of frozen methane, water, ammonia and hydrocarbons. In 1986, Voyager 2 passed by Uranus and returned the iconic image that most associate with the planet. This image showed a smooth, blue-green...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Hurtling through space at more than 35,000 miles per hour, NASA’s Voyager 1 is on the verge of breaking the barrier between the known Solar System and Interstellar Space; and Voyager 2 is not far behind. So what better way to commemorate such an event than with a prestigious award. Representatives from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the team behind the Voyager missions, received a Breakthrough Award...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online "I can see Uranus!" You could say that very phrase if you log on to Slooh Space Camera on Saturday night to get a glimpse of Uranus and the Harvest Moon. Slooh.com said it will be broadcasting live observatory feeds of Uranus and the full moon starting at 4:00 p.m. pacific time, 7:00 p.m. eastern. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and lies about 1.787 billion miles away. It takes 83 Earth years for Uranus to complete one...
Latest Voyager 2 Reference Libraries
Planetary Ring -- A planetary ring is a ring of dust and other small particles orbiting around a planet in a flat disc-shaped region. The most spectacular and famous planetary rings are those around Saturn, but all four of the solar system's gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) possess ring systems of their own. The origin of planetary rings is not precisely known, but they are thought to be unstable and dissipate over the course of tens or hundreds of millions of...
Planet Triton -- Triton is the planet Neptune's largest moon, discovered by William Lassell in 1846 just 17 days after the planet itself was discovered. It is named after Triton, from Greek mythology. Triton is unique among all large moons in the solar system for its retrograde orbit around the planet (i.e., it orbits in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation). Jupiter's moons Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae and Sinope and Saturn's moon Phoebe also orbit retrograde, but all of them...
Planet Larissa -- Larissa is the fifth of Neptune's known moons. It was discovered by Harold Reitsema based on ground-based stellar occultation observations, and was photographed by Voyager 2 in 1989. Larissa is irregular (non-spherical) in shape and appears to be heavily cratered, with no sign of any geological modification. Little else is known about it. Since its orbit is below Neptune's synchronous orbit radius it is slowly decaying due to tidal forces and will one day break up...
Planet Galatea -- Galatea is the fourth known moon of Neptune, named after the the Nereid of Greek legend. It was discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2 and very little is known about it. It is irregularly shaped and shows no sign of any geological modification. Since its orbit is below Neptune's synchronous orbit radius it is slowly decaying due to tidal forces and will one day break up into a planetary ring or impact on Neptune's surface. ----- Discovery Discovered by Voyager 2...
Planet Despina -- Despina is the third known moon of Neptune. It was discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2, and very little is known about it. It is irregularly shaped and shows no sign of any geological modification. Since its orbit is below Neptune's synchronous orbit radius it is slowly decaying due to tidal forces and will one day break up into a planetary ring or impact on Neptune's surface. ----- Discovery Discovered by Voyager 2 Discovered in 1989 Orbital...
![Voyager 2\](/media/gallery/universe/thumbs/thumbs_iod-universe-082112.jpg "Voyager 2\")
