Spacecraft exploration
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Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have encountered the Neptunian system. It and its twin, Voyager 1—both launched in 1977—originally were slated to visit only Jupiter and Saturn, but the timing of Voyager 2’s launch gave its trajectory the leeway needed for the spacecraft to be redirected, with a gravity assist from Saturn, on extended missions to Uranus and then to Neptune.
Voyager 2 flew past Neptune and its moons on August 24–25, 1989, observing the system almost continuously between June and October of that year. It measured the planet’s radius and interior rotation rate and detected its magnetic field, determining that the latter is both highly inclined and offset from the planet’s rotation axis. It confirmed that Neptune has rings and discovered six new moons. Neptune previously had been thought too cold to support active weather systems, but Voyager’s images of the planet revealed the highest atmospheric winds seen in the solar system and several large-scale storms, one the size of Earth.
Because Neptune was Voyager 2’s last planetary destination, mission scientists risked sending the spacecraft closer to it than to any other planet during the mission. Voyager passed about 5,000 km (3,100 miles) above Neptune’s north pole. A few hours later it passed within 40,000 km (24,800 miles) of Triton, which allowed it to gather high-resolution images of the moon’s highly varied surface as well as precise measurements of its radius and surface temperature. No future missions to Neptune are planned.
Ellis D. Miner