Voyager 1Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin Voyager 2, Voyager 1 has been operating for 5 September 1977 12:56:00 as of . It communicates through NASA's Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data is provided by NASA and JPL. At a distance of from Earth , it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.
Voyager 2Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach gas giants Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets.
Voyager programThe Voyager program is an 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 the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, to fly near them while collecting data for transmission back to Earth. After launch the decision was made to send Voyager 2 near Uranus and Neptune to collect data for transmission back to Earth.
Pioneer 10Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Pioneer 10 became the first of five planetary probes and 11 artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc. Pioneer 10 was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of the antenna.
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ˈnæsə) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science.
Solar SystemThe Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. The largest of such objects are the eight planets, in order from the Sun: four terrestrial planets named Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, two gas giants named Jupiter and Saturn, and two ice giants named Uranus and Neptune. The terrestrial planets have a definite surface and are mostly made of rock and metal. The gas giants are mostly made of hydrogen and helium, while the ice giants are mostly made of 'volatile' substances such as water, ammonia, and methane.
New HorizonsNew Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth.
JupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, and slightly less than one one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It was named after Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion.
Europa (moon)Europa jʊˈroʊpə, or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 95 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered independently by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei and was named (by Marius) after Europa, the Phoenician mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust and probably an iron–nickel core.
Ganymede (moon)Ganymede, or Jupiter III, is the largest and most massive natural satellite of Jupiter as well as in the Solar System, being a planetary-mass moon. It is the largest Solar System object without an atmosphere, despite being the only moon of the Solar System with a magnetic field. Like Titan, it is larger than the planet Mercury, but has somewhat less surface gravity than Mercury, Io or the Moon. Ganymede is composed of approximately equal amounts of silicate rock and water.
