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VOYAGER AT 40 SEPTEMBER 71

14 FEBRUARY 1990 17 FEBRUARY 1998 17 DECEMBER 2004 30 AUGUST 2007 25 AUGUST 2012
Voyager 1 takes the Pale Voyager 1 becomes the Voyager 1 passes the Voyager 2 passes the Voyager 1 crosses the
Blue Dot image of Earth most distant human- termination shock and termination shock and heliopause and enters
from 6 billion km away made object in space enters the heliosheath enters the heliosheath interstellar space

From 33.9 million km, Voyager 2
saw the famous rings and even
cloud patterns on Saturn

! Surprisingly, Uranus was seen to be featureless when Voyager 2 arrived (left)
but moons like Ariel (above right) and Miranda (top right) revealed wild and varied
surface features pointing to pasts marked by dramatic geological activity

Icy world Enceladus seen
here by Voyager 2,
is one of the most
reflective bodies
in the Solar
System
Spokes were
revealed in Saturn’s
complex ring system

storms, including the Great Dark Spot, and 1,600km/h ! Titan’s atmosphere is so sunlight – the now famous ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image
winds – the strongest on any planet. It imaged eight thick that the Voyager of Earth. Carolyn Porco planned and executed this
of Neptune’s moons, discovering five of them and could not see down to the Family Portrait alongside Carl Sagan. “As soon
saw active geysers on the largest moon, Triton. surface (top) but pearly as I joined the Voyager imaging team in fall 1983,
white Dione was seen the idea arose in my mind to take an image of the
One last glimpse glimmering in front of planets, but especially Earth, as they would be seen
Saturn’s clouds (bottom)
On Valentine’s Day 1990, Voyager 1 took the final from far away, to force that ‘reckoning’ that comes
pictures of the mission. Turning its camera back from seeing our cosmic place as it really
towards the Sun, from about 6 billion km away, is ... alone and isolated,” she says.
it took images of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, This marked the end of the Voyagers’ planetary
Jupiter, Venus and – suspended in a beam of explorations – the Grand Tour, as it’s known – and >

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