Aug 25 1989
From The Space Library
After travelling 4.4 billion miles over twelve years, the Voyager 2 space probe completed its fourth and final planetary encounter by passing Neptune at a distance of 3,042 miles. During the Neptune encounter, Voyager 2 discovered six new moons of Neptune, a set of faint rings around the planet, auroral activity on Neptune and Triton, and a surprisingly dynamic atmosphere containing large storm systems. Additionally, Voyager 2 obtained closeup images of Neptune's two largest moons, Triton and Nereid. Voyager 2 and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, were launched in 1977 for planned encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. After its Saturn encounter, Voyager 1 was steered away from the plane of the solar system toward interstellar space, while the Voyager 2 mission was expanded to take advantage of a rare alignment of the large outer planets, which made possible a "grand tour" of the outer solar system. With its power supply and all major mechanical systems still operative, Voyager 2 encountered Uranus in 1986, discovering rings and several new moons around the planet.
Advances in radio receiving technology allowed continued communication with Voyager 2 despite the spacecraft's extremely faint signal. At the conclusion of the Voyager 2 encounter with Neptune, the craft would steer clear of the plane of the solar system and continue traveling into interstellar space. In anticipation of a possible retrieval of the craft by intelligent extraterrestrial beings, both Voyager spacecraft carried plaques bearing hieroglyphic messages that indicated their origins on Earth and contained images of a human male and female in a gesture of greeting. The spacecraft also carried a gold-plated phonographic record of sounds from Earth, including greetings in all of the world's major languages and the sounds of several animal species. (NASA Headline News, Aug 28/89; Voyager Bulletin/Mission Status Report No. 96, Oct 4/89; NASA Voyager 2 Neptune Encounter Press Kit, Aug/89; UPI, Aug 25/89; NY Times, Aug 25/89; W Post, Aug 25/89; WSJ, Aug 25/89; USA Today, Aug 25/89; W Times, Aug 25/89; P Inq, Aug 25/89; CSM, Aug 25/89; B Sun, Aug 25/89)
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