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Voyager program Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
Voyager program facts for kids
The Voyager program is a space exploration program of the United States' NASA agency. It consists of a pair of unmanned scientific probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s. Although they were officially used to study just Jupiter and Saturn, the two probes were able to continue their mission into the outer solar system. They have since continued out and exited the solar system. These probes were built at JPL and were funded by NASA.
Both missions have gathered large amounts of data about the gas giants of the solar system, of which little was known before. In addition, the spacecraft paths have been used to place limits on the existence of Planet X, a planet believed by some people to be farther from the Sun than Pluto.
Images for kids
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Montage of planets and some moons the two Voyager spacecraft have visited and studied
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Radioisotope thermoelectric generators for the Voyager program
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This diagram about the heliosphere was released on June 28, 2013 and incorporates results from the Voyager spacecraft.
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The cover of the golden record
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Seen from 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a "pale blue dot" (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right).
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Voyager One, from Space: 1999.