Voyager 2's Encounter with the Gas Giants

Abstract

It was 3:40 am Pacific daylight time, 25 August 1989. I had watched with fascination a video display of Voyager 2's radio signal after the spacecraft had passed through Neptune's thick atmosphere, and for the last 90 minutes I had been attempting to nap in a sleeping bag on the floor of my office at JPL. My computer had just awakened me with a reminder that the first of 23 high-resolution pictures of Neptune's moon Triton was about to appear on the small monitor on my desk. The adjacent office was crowded with a dozen or so of my coworkers excitedly anticipating the same pictures. The first image appeared on my screen; boisterous cheering simultaneously erupted from next door. All thoughts of sleep fled, and for the next two hours I, along with dozens of other Voyager personnel and millions of interested onlookers around the world, exulted in the amazing scenes being transmitted by a small robot more than 4.4 billion km (4.1 light-hours) away. Humanity was seeing for the first time the surface features of the most distant moon in our solar system.