Articles

The Downlink

All the wonders that the cosmos offered up this week, plus news about NASA’s leadership and an exciting launch.

The Downlink

Even Sagan would be amazed by multitudes we now know our cosmos may hold. Learn more, plus get your scoop on the week’s space news.

The Planetary Society

The leader of the Cassini spacecraft imaging team discusses pale blue dots, life on Enceladus, terraforming Mars, Pluto, Carl Sagan, and more.

Ian Regan

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the historic Voyager 1 encounter with Jupiter in 1979.

Björn Jónsson

The color of Uranus and Neptune is similar, but not identical. Uranus appears greener and Neptune bluer.

Emily Lakdawalla

Voyager 2 is now outside the reach of the solar wind, traveling in the interstellar medium. Unlike Voyager 1, Voyager 2 has a working plasma spectrometer so will be doing exciting new science. It is expected to last another 5 to 10 years, though not with all instruments operating.

Emily Lakdawalla

One of the Cassini mission's goals was to figure out how long a day on Saturn is. We still don't know. A new paper reports a measurement of the rotation period of Saturn that is different from past measurements.

Jatan Mehta

Take a look at how electronics of spacecraft are built to survive the harshness of space environments.

Emily Lakdawalla

To start the week, Voyager 2's best image of Tethys.

Paul Schenk

Planetary scientist Paul Schenk shares his story of working on the Voyager missions as a JPL intern back in 1979.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1. Four decades later, both spacecraft survive, still producing science, still working on their interstellar missions. On the occasion of the anniversary, we revisit Carl Sagan's reflections on the significance of the Voyager missions.

Björn Jónsson

Björn Jónsson argues that even now, 40 years after Voyager 1 and 2 were launched, a lot of the data they returned is still of high interest.

Ian Regan

In 1979, both Voyager missions captured thousands of photos of Jupiter as frames of movies of the giant planet spinning among its moons. In honor of the mission's 40th launch anniversary, Ian Regan has reprocessed the data to produce stunning new movies.

Emily Lakdawalla

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Voyager missions, we're making publicly available seven back issues of The Planetary Report that chronicled the grand tour of the giant planets.

Ted Stryk

The Voyager missions transformed most of the large worlds of the solar system from points of light into places to be explored.

Emily Lakdawalla

Sunday, August 20 marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2. Tuesday, September 5, will be the 40th anniversary for Voyager 1. Throughout the next three weeks, we'll be posting new and classic material in honor of the Voyagers. Here's a preview.

Ted Stryk

Amateur image processor Ted Stryk revisited Voyager 1 data of Enceladus and came across a surprise.

Emily Lakdawalla

Beautiful new amateur work with 27-year-old Voyager data.

Björn Jónsson

A few weeks before the first Juno high resolution imaging, I decided to take a look at Voyager color images at various resolutions, with particular attention to high-resolution mosaics.

Justin Cowart

With Juno arriving at Jupiter, Justin Cowart gives us a lesson on the giant planet's varied cloud patterns.