| .....The twin Voyager
spacecraft, over the course of a dozen
years, drew back the curtain on nearly
half of the solar system. From launch in
1977 through the spectacular parting
shots in 1989 of Neptune at the outer
reaches of the solar system, this pair of
gangly, instrument-laden spacecraft
explored four planets -- Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune -- as well as tens of
moons, and the rings and magnetic
environments of those planetary systems. .....The Voyagers
were designed to take advantage of a rare
geometric arrangement of the outer
planets that occurs only once every 176
years. This configuration allows a
spacecraft to swing from one planet to
the next without the need for large
onboard propulsion systems; the flyby of
each planet both accelerates the
spacecraft and bends its flight path.
Without this gravity assist, the flight
time to Neptune would be 30 years.
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