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What did the Voyager do in space?
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system’s giant planets at close range. Voyager 2 discovered a 14th moon at Jupiter. Voyager 2 was the first human-made object to fly past Uranus. At Uranus, Voyager 2 discovered 10 new moons and two new rings.
How many voyagers are in space?
two
The Voyager program is an ongoing American scientific program that employs two robotic interstellar probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, to fly near them while collecting data for transmission back to Earth.
Where is Voyager now?
Where are the Voyagers now? Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have reached “Interstellar space” and each continue their unique journey through the Universe. In the NASA Eyes on the Solar System app, you can see the real spacecraft trajectories of the Voyagers, which are updated every five minutes.
Will Voyager 1 come back to Earth?
Engineers expect each spacecraft to continue operating at least one science instrument until around 2025. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth.
How does Voyager travel so fast?
Each Voyager used the enormous gravity field of Jupiter to be hurled on to Saturn, experiencing a Sun-relative speed increase of roughly 35,700 mph. As total energy within the solar system must be conserved, Jupiter was initially slowed in its solar orbit—but by only one foot per trillion years.
Is Voyager still sending pictures?
The probe is well into the fourth decade of its mission, and it hasn’t come near a planet since it flew past Saturn in 1980. But even as it drifts farther and farther from a dimming sun, it’s still sending information back to Earth, as scientists recently reported in The Astrophysical Journal.