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| .....Voyager
2 was launched first, on August 20, 1977,
followed by Voyager 1, which was put on a
faster, shorter trajectory to Jupiter on
September 5, 1977. Both launches took
place at the Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida. Eighteen months after
launch, Voyager 1 reached Jupiter, 650
million kilometers (400 million miles)
away. The spacecraft made its closest
approach on March 5, 1979, while Voyager
2 followed on July 9 of the same year.
Images streaming back from the pair of
spacecraft began to show the complicated,
swirling turbulence of Jupiter's
atmosphere in exquisite detail. A giant
storm three times the size of Earth was
raging in Jupiter's upper atmosphere,
surrounded by rippling currents that
rotated around it. Voyager 1 made a
startling discovery; it found nine active
volcanoes erupting on Io, the innermost
of Jupiter's four major moons. Four
months later, Voyager 2 found that eight
of the nine volcanoes were still erupting.
Much to everyone's surprise, a thin,
dusty ring was also |
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