40 years ago, the twin Voyager 1 and 2 space probes were just starting on their historic journeys to the outer solar system. Voyager 1 destined to visit Saturn and Jupiter, Voyager 2 destined to not only study those planets, but also to be the first, and still only probe to fly by Uranus and Neptune, the outermost planets.
When it was all said and done, from 1979 and the probes encounters with Jupiter, to 1989 and Voyager 2’s encounter with Neptune, thousands of photos were taken – our first, and in the case of Uranus and Neptune, still only close looks at the far off worlds.
This short film produced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows just a few of the more amazing images from the Voyager program – missions which taught us new things about these worlds, their moons, and just how dynamic the outer solar system really is – complex storms on Neptune, for example, were thought to be impossible before Voyager 2 showed the planet was very active.
As I said, it’s a short film, one certainly worth watching. While the image quality is poor compared to images from Cassini, Galileo, or Juno, you have to remmeber this was a camera system from the mid 1970’s put on spacecraft that were flying by these planets at pretty high speeds – they were amazing for their time, and in some cases, if mainly on historic significance, still are.
Enjoy, as always.