If you look closely in the reddish line on the right, you’ll see a single pale blu pixel. That’s the Earth as seen by Voyager 1 in 1990 when it was about 6 billion km away.
Image Credit: NASA
You Are Here
Reply
Tag Archives: Voyager 1
Another Picture of the Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot
This one was taken by Voyager 1 during its flyby in 1979.
Image Credit: NASA
The Red Spot
Yep. It’s another picture of Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot. It was taken over 40 years ago by Voyager 1 as it flew by on its way to Saturn and beyond.
Image Credit: NASA
The Outer Planets
Video Credit: NASA
The Earth Seen From Space
One of the most famous images of Earth was taken by Voyager 1 when it was 6 billion km from home. The Earth is a single pixel in that picture called The Pale Blue Dot. Voyager 1 was just about 12,000,000 km above Mt. Everest when it took this picture of the Earth and the Moon on 18 September, 1977. The Moon is on the far side of the Earth in this picture which shows East Asia, the Western Pacific, and part of the Arctic. Mt. Everest in hidden from view on the night side of the Earth.
Image Credit: NASA
That Pale Blue Dot
This is an updated version of the Pale Blue Dot image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft 30 years ago today. It was created using modern image-processing software and techniques while trying to remain faithful to the original. Like the original, this new color view shows the Earth as a single blue pixel in the vastness of space. Rays of sunlight scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene, one of which intersects with Earth. Look closely at the stripe just right of center. That speck a bit past half way up isn’t dust on your screen. It’s the Earth.
The image was taken just before Voyager 1’s cameras were turned off to conserve power because the probe would not make another planetary flyby. Shutting down instruments and other systems on the two Voyager spacecraft has been a gradual and ongoing process that has helped keep them running as they have left the Solar System.
Image Credit: NASA
Voyager 1’s Path to Interstellar Space
Video Credit: NASA
Jupiter’s Rings
Saturn’s rings are so prominent that they can be seen through a small telescope from Earth, but the other gas giant planets, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, have ring systems as well. 
Jupiter’s rings were discovered by Voyager 1 in a single image that was targeted specifically to search for a possible ring system. Voyager 2 was reprogrammed en route to take a more complete set of pictures. The image above is from that series. We now known that the system has three major components. The Main ring is about 7,000 km wide and has an abrupt outer boundary roughly 129,000 km from the center of the planet. This ring encompasses the orbits of two small moons, Adrastea and Metis, which probably are the source for the material that makes up most of the ring. The main ring merges gradually into the Halo on the side toward Jupiter. The halo is a broad, faint, donut of material about 20,000 km thick and extending halfway from the main ring down to the planet’s cloudtops.
Around the main ring is the broad and exceedingly faint Gossamer ring. It extends out beyond the orbit of the moon Amalthea and is probably composed of dust particles less than 10 µm in diameter. That’s roughly the size of cigarette smoke particles. It extends to an outer edge of about 129,000 km from the center of the planet and inward to about 30,000 km. The origin of the ring is probably material knocked loose by micrometeorite bombardment of the tiny moons orbiting within the ring.
Jupiter’s rings and moons exist within an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped in the planet’s magnetic field. These particles and fields make up the Jovian magnetosphere or magnetic environment which extends up to 7 million km toward the Sun and stretches outward 750 million km in a windsock shape to Saturn’s orbit.
Image Credit: NASA
Voyager Images
Video Credit: NASA
Looking Back Toward Home
Voyager 1 was just about 12,000,000 km above Mt. Everest when it took this picture of the Earth and the Moon on 18 September, 1977. The Moon is on the far side of the Earth in this picture which shows East Asia, the Western Pacific, and part of the Arctic. Mt. Everest in hidden from view on the night side of the Earth.
Image Credit: NASA
Voyager at 40
Video Credit: NASA
Voyager 1 Looks Back
In this artist’s rendering the Voyager 1 spacecraft has a outsider’s view of the Solar System. The circles represent the orbits of the major planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Voyager 1 visited the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and the spacecraft is now almost 21 billion km from Earth, making it the farthest and fastest-moving human-made object ever built. It’s is now moving through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying stars.
Image Credits: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Tsunamis in Interstellar Space
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u-RZTwpECg]
Video Credit: NASA
Ganymede
This rotating animation of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede begins as a global color mosaic image of the moon assembled from data from Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and the Galileo spacecraft and then fades in a newly developed geologic map.
Video Credit: USGS Astrogeology Science Ctr / Wheaton / ASU / NASA / JPL-Caltech
The Sound of Interstellar Space
Take a listen to what Voyager 1 is hearing.
Video Credit: NASA
Voyager 1 Leaves the Neighborhood
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4hf8HyP0LI]
Video Credit: NASA
When the two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977, we were getting our music from LPs, and Apple Computer was just moving out of Steve Job’s parent’s garage.
Jupiter’s Rings
Saturn’s rings are so prominent that they can be seen through a small telescope from Earth, but the other gas giant planets, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, have ring systems as well.
Jupiter’s rings were discovered by Voyager 1 in a single image that was targeted specifically to search for a possible ring system. Voyager 2 was reprogrammed en route to take a more complete set of pictures. The image above is from that series. We now known that the system has three major components. The Main ring is about 7,000 km wide and has an abrupt outer boundary roughly 129,000 km from the center of the planet. This ring encompasses the orbits of two small moons, Adrastea and Metis, which probably are the source for the material that makes up most of the ring. The main ring merges gradually into the Halo on the side toward Jupiter. The halo is a broad, faint, donut of material about 20,000 km thick and extending halfway from the main ring down to the planet’s cloudtops.
Around the main ring is the broad and exceedingly faint Gossamer ring. It extends out beyond the orbit of the moon Amalthea and is probably composed of dust particles less than 10 µm in diameter. That’s roughly the size of cigarette smoke particles. It extends to an outer edge of about 129,000 km from the center of the planet and inward to about 30,000 km. The origin of the ring is probably material knocked loose by micrometeorite bombardment of the tiny moons orbiting within the ring.
Jupiter’s rings and moons exist within an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped in the planet’s magnetic field. These particles and fields make up the Jovian magnetosphere or magnetic environment which extends up to 7 million km toward the Sun and stretches outward 750 million km in a windsock shape to Saturn’s orbit.
Image Credit: NASA
Crescent Jupiter
We can’t see Jupiter like this from Earth. Because Jupiter is farther from the Sun than the Earth, it is always fully illuminated from our point of view. This picture was assembled from three color-filtered images taken by Voyager 1 on 24 March, 1979, as it flew past the planet. Click on the image to embiggen.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL