NEWS & FEATURES
25 Years After Neptune: Reflections on Voyager
August 25, 1989: Neptune is in view. It is the middle of the night and everything is happening fast at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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NASA Voyager Statement About Solar Wind Models
NASA's Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone responds to an alternate model for the interaction between the heliosphere and the interstellar medium.
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Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone Honored
Ed Stone, project scientist of NASA’s Voyager mission since 1972, and former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, was honored with a lifetime achievement award on Wednesday from the American Astronautical Society.
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Sun Sends More 'Tsunami Waves' to Voyager 1
NASA's Voyager has experienced more \"tsunami waves\" from the sun -- the same kind that led to the realization last year that the spacecraft had entered interstellar space.
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Dr. Edward C. Stone Receives 35th Howard Hughes Memorial Award
Space scientist Dr. Edward C. Stone, professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology and former director of the NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory, has been awarded the 2013 Howard Hughes Memorial Award by the Aero Club of Southern California.
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Voyager Project Scientist Honored by NASA--Via Stephen Colbert
As if NASA's Voyager mission didn't have enough firsts in its 36-year journey, what with sending the first spacecraft to Uranus, Neptune and, most recently, interstellar space!
› read moreMISSION OVERVIEW
The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-35-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. Scientists hope to learn more about this region when Voyager 2, in the "heliosheath" -- the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar medium -- also reaches interstellar space. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through the Deep Space Network, or DSN.
The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there -- such as active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and intricacies of Saturn's rings -- the mission was extended. Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers' current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain. And beyond. › read more
VOYAGER 1
- DISTANCE
- FROM EARTH
- DISTANCE
- FROM THE SUN
- ROUNDTRIP LIGHT
- TIME FROM THE SUN
- (hh:mm:ss)
VOYAGER 2
- DISTANCE
- FROM EARTH
- DISTANCE
- FROM THE SUN
- ROUNDTRIP LIGHT
- TIME FROM THE SUN
- (hh:mm:ss)
Question: Are the distance counters rolling backwards?
Answer: Often they are, and it's actually not an error. This is caused by the fact that Earth moves around the sun more quickly than either Voyager spacecraft is departing from Earth. So, at certain times of the year, the distance between Earth and each Voyager actually decreases.
