Voyager 2 is a spacecraft that completed the planetary Grand Tour, visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It is the most productive space probe and has provided extensive images of the outer planets. Currently, it is twice as far from the Sun as Pluto and will run out of power in the 2020s. Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 made observations of volcanic activity on Io and discovered new moons at Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Its scientific measurements continue to benefit planetary scientists.
Voyager 2 is an unmanned planetary spacecraft, one of the only ones to visit the outer planets and the only one to complete the planetary Grand Tour – flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – possible only once every 176 years. For its visits to all the outer planets, Voyager 2 is often cited as the most productive space probe ever. When images of the outer planets are shown in books, magazines, and on the Internet, images from Voyager 2 are used extensively, particularly for Uranus and Neptune.
Currently, Voyager 2 is twice as far from the Sun as Pluto, at about 83.5 AU (Earth-Sun lengths). It continues to travel away from the Sun at 3 AU per year and has sufficient velocity to escape the solar system’s gravity well. Unlike its partner, Voyager 1, launched a month later but significantly more distant, Voyager 2 did not pass outside the area where the solar wind is the primary force in dust particle dynamics, known as the heliosphere. Unfortunately, by the time it does, in the 2020s, it will start to run out of power from its onboard radioisotope thermal generators.
Launched on August 20, 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Voyager 2 took less than a couple of years to reach Jupiter. She made her closest pass on July 9, 1979, making the first-ever observations of volcanic activity on another celestial body, Io. Nine erupting volcanoes were observed, ejecting material at a rate of 1 km/sec in plumes 300 kilometers (190 miles) above the surface. It ejects material so far and fast that some of it reaches escape velocity, dispersing the billowing magma throughout the Jovian system.
Using gravity assist from Jupiter, Voyager 2 traveled to Saturn, discovering several new moons, then to Uranus and Neptune, where it discovered more moons and made accurate measurements of the temperature and velocity of the cloud tops on these planets. To this day, planetary scientists are benefiting from scientific measurements made by the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
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