{"id":665753,"date":"2026-11-03T15:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665753\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T15:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:58:20","slug":"im-nasas-ex-chief-scientist-heres-how-the-voyager-missions-revolutionised-our-exploration-of-the-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665753\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m NASA’s ex-chief scientist. Here’s how the Voyager missions revolutionised our exploration of the Solar System"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Voyager mission not only transformed our knowledge of Jupiter, Saturn and their dozens of moons, it also gave us our first close-up look at the strange and wondrous planets Uranus and Neptune.<\/p>\n

Voyager will be remembered as one of the greatest achievements in exploration. As you read this, the two Voyager probes are still operating and travelling where no spacecraft \u2013 or anything else touched by human hands \u2013 has ever gone before.<\/p>\n

In August 2012, Voyager 1 left our planetary system and entered the mysterious region between the stars: interstellar space. Voyager 2 joined its pioneering twin in the outer limits of the Sun\u2019s sphere of influence in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"UranusUranus (left) and Neptune (right), as seen by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech; NASA<\/p>\n

In the decades since the two craft were launched into space, Voyager 1 has travelled more than 24 billion km, while Voyager 2 has hit the 20 billion km mark.<\/p>\n

It’s worth pausing to reflect on the vision that inspired Voyager, its greatest achievements and its enduring legacy \u2013 how the two probes and their findings inspired those that followed and how they continue to influence NASA missions today.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne of the Voyager spacecraft undergoing tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, April 1977. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

In my quieter moments, I think about a time, billions of years from now, when our Sun has become a red giant. By then, Earth will no longer be habitable and, in order to survive, humans will have \u2018left the nest\u2019 for another home, following a path forged by the Voyager missions.<\/p>\n

It’s humbling and inspiring to think that, even then, the Voyagers will still be Earth\u2019s ambassadors \u2013 each one a time capsule from an era when audacious explorers on our Pale Blue Dot reached out to the stars beyond our Solar System.<\/p>\n

Not only has the science produced by the Voyager mission been captivating, the probes themselves captured the world\u2019s imagination by each carrying a greeting for extraterrestrial civilisations, in the form of the Golden Records.<\/p>\n

While Pioneers 10 and 11 each carried small metal plaques detailing their origin and date of launch, the Voyagers\u2019 Golden Records were considerably more ambitious.<\/p>\n

The twin phonograph records brim with images and sounds that provide a snapshot of the diversity of life and culture on Earth to anyone that might discover them. As Carl Sagan noted, \u201cThe launching of this \u2018bottle\u2019 in the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Golden Record and its cover, showing information on how it should be played as well as illustrations revealing the location of the SolarSystem. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech
\nWhy were there two Voyager spacecraft?<\/p>\n

The Voyager mission was as ambitious as it gets. Collectively, the Voyagers visited more planets, discovered more moons and imaged more places than any other spacecraft in NASA history.<\/p>\n

One of the questions I\u2019m often asked is: why were there two Voyagers? Voyager was an early NASA mission, at a time when flight systems were known to suffer many anomalies that would put them in safe mode, a condition that typically shuts down all science instruments and looks for commands from Earth.<\/p>\n

Since the Voyager missions were flybys, anomalies that would require a lot of time to diagnose and correct could result in us missing an encounter and all the science that might derive from it.<\/p>\n

By having two spacecraft we could increase the odds of the mission\u2019s success. The same strategy was employed with the Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity; having two rovers not only provides a redundancy and gives us a bigger margin for error.<\/p>\n

\"SaturnSaturn and its moons Tethys, Dion and Rhea, as seen by Voyager 2 in August 1981. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

It quickly became clear that this \u2018one-two punch\u2019 strategy was the best one to adopt. Voyager 1\u2019s scan platform, the swivel that moves its cameras and instruments from side to side, became stuck for several weeks in 1978.<\/p>\n

The same platform became stuck on Voyager 2\u2019s as the spacecraft was pulling away from its closest approach with Saturn. Fortunately Voyager 2 produced fantastic results at Saturn despite the technical problems, but the anomalies reinforced the value of redundancy and having a second craft as a back-up.<\/p>\n

As the first mission to take in the four giant planets in the outer Solar System, Voyager produced a bonanza of new science.<\/p>\n

Among the mission\u2019s accomplishments was the discovery of previously unknown moons and rings, the finding of active volcanoes on Io<\/a>, Neptune\u2019s Great Dark Spot and powerful winds and erupting geysers on Triton.<\/p>\n

The discoveries didn\u2019t stop with the probes\u2019 last planetary flybys though. In 2012 Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to leave the heliosphere, delivering the first measurements of the full intensity of cosmic rays and the galactic magnetic field from interstellar space.Voyager 2 provided the first measurements of the solar wind termination shock.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn image of a volcanic explosion on Io, captured by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on 4 March at 17:30 (PST) from a distance of 490,000km. Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Planetary Science Division follows a paradigm for its exploration of the Solar System: flyby, orbit, land, rove and return samples.<\/p>\n

The Voyagers were \u2013 and in some ways continue to be \u2013 the scouting party and the instigators of this paradigm. They forged the way with flybys that have enabled us to take the next steps.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Voyager spacecraft allowed us to survey what\u2019s out there and decide on our priorities for further study. As flyby missions, the Voyagers reinforced the planetary science paradigm, which has been, and continues to be, tremendously successful.<\/p>\n

Critical to the success of the Voyagers\u2019 tours of the outer planets was the principle of gravity assist \u2013 using the mass of a planet or another object in space to alter the speed and trajectory of a spacecraft. Voyager 2 nailed the gravity assist to tour Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.<\/p>\n

Since then, a number of missions have employed gravity assists to save fuel and dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to reach destinations in the outer Solar System.<\/p>\n

New Horizons flew by Pluto with a boost from Jupiter\u2019s gravity. When OSIRIS-REX<\/a>, was on its way to asteroid 101955 Bennu, it got a gravity assist from Earth to slingshot it more rapidly to its destination.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn image of Saturn’s moon Titan captured by a Voyager probe. Credit: NASA<\/p>\n

On the other hand, mission planners for Messenger used gravity assist not to speed the spacecraft up, but to slow it down, so it could successfully enter Mercury\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Messenger received assists at Earth and Venus, and three separate assists from Mercury itself before being placed into Mercury\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Cassini received two gravity assists at Venus and one each at Earth and Jupiter en route to Saturn.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft mastered the art of gravity assists and used close flybys of Saturn’s largest moon Titan to continually reshape its orbit.<\/p>\n

This allowed Cassini to obtain new views of many of the Saturnian moons that would be otherwise inaccessible, and produced significant scientific results.<\/p>\n

In order to observe Neptune\u2019s moon Triton, Voyager 2 performed a very close flyby of Neptune that saw it pass about 5,000km above the planet\u2019s north polar cloud tops.<\/p>\n

\"AA view of cloud streaks in Neptune’s atmosphere, captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/p>\n

This was the closest trajectory that any spacecraft had followed around one of the outer planets and initiated the development of precision trajectories for future flybys that would be even closer.<\/p>\n

One such flyby took Cassini through the plumes bursting up from Enceladus<\/a>, bringing the probe within 15km of the moon\u2019s icy surface.<\/p>\n

While the Voyagers had limited programmable memory, it proved to be a critical resource that was used extensively and reprogrammed on a number of occasions.Consequently, all subsequent planetary missions were given large programmable memories.<\/p>\n

The Voyagers set the agenda for future planetary exploration.Though they taught us much about the ice giants and their moons, the relatively primitive instruments of those missions, and the relatively low volume of data returned raised more questions than answers.<\/p>\n

The Voyager mission was a case of the more we know, the more we appreciate what we need to learn. As such, Voyager paved the way for a number of NASA missions: both the Galileo<\/a> and Juno missions to Jupiter, and the Cassini mission to Saturn with, appropriately, a gravity assist from Jupiter.<\/p>\n

The Europa Clipper mission<\/a> is an orbiter that also builds on the experience gained from Voyager. Clipper launched on October 14, 2024 and a subsequent lander mission would be a logical successor that could explore the surface but also seek evidence of life beyond Earth.<\/p>\n

While the Voyagers’ ‘grand tours’ didn\u2019t include Pluto, the New Horizons mission \u2018completed the set\u2019 with a flyby of Pluto in July of 2015 \u2013 aided once again by a gravity assist from Jupiter.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn image of Jupiter and its Great Red Spot, captured during the Voyager mission. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech
\nReturning to the ice giants<\/p>\n

The ice giants Uranus and Neptune<\/a> have remained unexplored since Voyager 2, but that could change in the years to come.<\/p>\n

The Planetary Science Decadal Survey covering 2013\u20132022 lists a return to Uranus or Neptune as a top priority.<\/p>\n

A NASA-led pre-decadal survey explored a variety of potential mission concepts including orbiters, flybys and probes that would dive into Uranus\u2019s atmosphere to study its composition.<\/p>\n

Voyagers\u2019 discoveries also inspired a future mission to Jupiter\u2019s fascinating volcanic moon Io, with an Io Observer listed as one of the priorities in NASA\u2019s New Frontiers line of missions in 2003.<\/p>\n

The Voyagers piqued our curiosity about the internal structures and compositions of the giant planets. We have much to learn about their polar regions and the origin of their magnetic fields.<\/p>\n

Very little is known about the magnetic fields and magnetospheres of Uranus and Neptune, aside from what was learned through the Voyager encounters more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n

But questions remain about their magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes and their link to the aurorae and moons.<\/p>\n

\"AA crescent Uranus is Voyager 2’s parting shot as its encounter at the icy giant ends, 25 January 1986. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

Also puzzling are Neptune\u2019s heat flow, which is around 10 times larger than expected, and Uranus\u2019s, which is about three times greater than anticipated. But the causes are unknown.<\/p>\n

At Neptune, Voyager found nitrogen geysers erupting into the stratosphere from Triton\u2019s ultra-cold surface.<\/p>\n

We also still have much to learn about the final frontier of the Solar System, so visiting the heliopause with a more capable mission is on my bucket list.<\/p>\n

Looking back on the Voyager mission, we can reflect on what drives us to understand our origins and what our future may hold. Curiosity is in our DNA. As humans, we\u2019re compelled to explore, to find out what lies beyond the next hill.<\/p>\n

The Voyager probes not only transformed our view of science and the Universe, they also changed us as people. Who isn\u2019t awestruck and humbled by the iconic image of our home planet, that Pale Blue Dot, seen by Voyager 1 from a distance of six billion km?<\/p>\n

We were compelled to repeat that experiment with Cassini as we viewed Earth through Saturn\u2019s rings.<\/p>\n

\"Voyager'sVoyager’s 60-frame Solar System portrait. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

Voyager also taught us the art of patience. The time it took for the probes to complete their investigations required that the NASA scientists involved with the mission make a long-term investment in the project.<\/p>\n

Any gratification that came from it would be severely delayed, but, as history show has shown, it would be worth the wait.<\/p>\n

As a graduate student, I was transfixed by the Voyager flybys.<\/p>\n

Now I believe we should be returning to the outer Solar System, to go back to Uranus and Neptune and discover even more about the ice giants.<\/p>\n

There are still legacies of the Voyager mission out there waiting to be fulfilled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Voyager mission not only transformed our knowledge of Jupiter, Saturn and their dozens of moons, it also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-665753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}