Jupiter’s moon Io from Voyager 1 Space Probe

Voyager 1 Space Probe reaches new frontier 33 years after launch, with beautiful photographs of Io, one of Jupiter‘s moons.

Ed Stone, Voyager Project Scientist, Caltech, said:

“Finding a moon that’s 100 times more active volcanically than the entire Earth, it’s really quite striking. And this was typical of what Voyager was going to do on the rest of its journey through the outer solar system. This was really beyond imagination.”

NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has reached a new frontier, 33 years into its voyage to the edge of the solar system and beyond. Since June, when it was 17 billion kilometers from the sun, it has stopped viewing particles in the solar wind streaming outwards due to incoming interstellar particles pushing the solar wind sideways.

Voyager project scientist Ed Stone of Caltech, said:

“The solar wind has turned the corner. Voyager 1 is getting close to interstellar space.” One of Stone’s most famous contributions to space exploration is his role as project scientist for the Voyager mission, whose twin spacecraft studied Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune between 1979 and 1989.”