Voyager's Many Discoveries
08.20.07
The twin Voyager spacecraft ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment. Here are some of their many discoveries:
-- Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere with dozens of interacting hurricane-like storm systems
-- Erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io, which has 100 times the volcanic activity of Earth
-- The Io torus, a thick ring of ionized sulfur and oxygen shed by Io that inflates Jupiter's giant magnetic field
-- An indication of an ocean beneath the cracked icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa
-- Waves and fine structure in Saturn's icy rings from the tugs of nearby moons, and small moons shepherding the narrow, kinky F-ring
-- A deep, smoggy nitrogen atmosphere on Saturn's moon Titan, likely having clouds and rain of methane
-- Complex and diverse surfaces of frozen moons shaped by icy volcanism and faults
-- Neptune's Great Dark Spot and 1,600 kilometer-per-hour winds (1,000 miles per hour)
-- Geysers erupting from the polar cap Neptune's moon Triton at -390 degrees Fahrenheit
-- The termination shock where the supersonic solar wind abruptly slows, forming the final frontier of the solar system
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