24 Facts About Voyager 2

1.

Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets.

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2.

Voyager 2 was the fourth of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System.

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3.

Voyager 2 successfully fulfilled its primary mission of visiting the Jovian system in 1979, the Saturnian system in 1981, Uranian system in 1986, and the Neptunian system in 1989.

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4.

Voyager 2 has left the Sun's heliosphere and is traveling through the interstellar medium, a region of outer space beyond the influence of the Solar System, joining Voyager 1, which had reached the interstellar medium in 2012.

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5.

Voyager 2 has begun to provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.

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6.

Voyager 2 remains in contact with Earth through the NASA Deep Space Network.

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7.

Primary mission of Voyager 2 1 was to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's moon, Titan.

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8.

Voyager 2 was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, but on a trajectory that would have the option of continuing on to Uranus and Neptune, or being redirected to Titan as a backup for Voyager 1.

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9.

Voyager 2 is equipped with 3 Multihundred-Watt radioisotope thermoelectric generators .

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10.

However, Voyager 1 reached both Jupiter and Saturn sooner, as Voyager 2 had been launched into a longer, more circular trajectory.

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11.

For each subsequent transmission to Voyager 2, it was necessary for engineers to calculate the specific frequency for the signal so that it could be received by the spacecraft.

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12.

Voyager 2 returned images of Jupiter, as well as its moons Amalthea, Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.

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13.

Closer high-resolution photos from Voyager 2 were puzzling: the features lacked topographic relief, and one scientist said they "might have been painted on with a felt marker".

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14.

The mission's engineers were able to fix the problem, and the Voyager 2 probe was given the go-ahead to explore the Uranian system.

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15.

Voyager 2 discovered 11 previously unknown moons: Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck and Perdita.

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16.

When Voyager 2 visited Uranus, much of its cloud features were hidden by a layer of haze; however, false-color and contrast-enhanced images show bands of concentric clouds around its south pole.

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17.

Voyager 2 discovered previously unknown Neptunian rings, and confirmed six new moons: Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Proteus, Naiad and Thalassa.

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18.

Once its planetary mission was over, Voyager 2 was described as working on an interstellar mission, which NASA is using to find out what the Solar System is like beyond the heliosphere.

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19.

Voyager 2 is currently transmitting scientific data at about 160 bits per second.

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20.

In 1992, Voyager 2 observed the nova V1974 Cygni in the far-ultraviolet.

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21.

Voyager 2 failed to detect anything, with calculations showing that the fireballs were just below the craft's limit of detection.

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22.

Voyager 2 is heading in the direction of the constellation Telescopium.

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23.

In 2013, Voyager 2 1 was escaping the Solar System at a speed of about 3.

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24.

In 2023, Voyager 2 is expected to pass Pioneer 10 to become the second furthest spacecraft from the Sun at a distance of around 12.

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