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Voyager 2
The only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 2 toured all four giant planets and now travels through interstellar space.
- Launch
- 20 August 1977
- Distance from Earth today
- 21.64 billion km144.7 AU · light: 20 h 3 min
- Distance from the Sun today
- 21.60 billion km144.4 AU
Live distance from Earth and chart →
Trajectory
Trajectory: JPL Horizons vectors (spacecraft -32) every 30 days, projected onto the ecliptic; compressed distance scale.
About the mission
Voyager 2 actually launched about two weeks before its twin, on a slower path that took advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets. After Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1981, it became the only spacecraft ever to fly past Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989), discovering new moons and rings at both worlds. It then dropped below the plane of the planets and in late 2018 crossed into interstellar space. It is still talking to Earth, but only one antenna of the Deep Space Network, in Canberra, can send it commands.