about the size of a Volkswagen bug with
extremely long antennas this robotic
outer space Explorer called Voyager has
dazzled scientists and laymen with
photographs of planets in our solar
system first traveling to Jupiter and to
Saturn and now to Uranus Voyager has
travelled a distance of 2 billion miles
from Earth recently we have seen
photographs from the little known world
of Uranus appearing like a fuzzy
blue-green tennis ball tipped on its
side Uranus conceals its secrets under
an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium
it's southern polar region sits under a
thin layer of haze produced by the
action of sunlight much as smog is
produced in our major cities scientists
feel that Uranus has a very deep ocean
of electrically conductive water that
forms the planet's magnetic field and
hosts a rocky inner core about the size
of Earth it has been recently found that
the magnetic field is largely offset
from the planets center besides pointing
at scientific sensors and TV cameras at
Uranus and it's charcoal black rings
Voyager discovered 10 new moons making a
total of 15 known to circle the planet
the close flyby of the moon Miranda
proved to be one of the most exciting
highlights of the encounter according to
Voyager project manager dick laser we
had worked so hard to make sure that
those frames as those pictures would be
exactly where we wanted them when that
when the first of the series the miranda
images amen and it clipped the corner of
the satellite just where it was supposed
to it was that sense of oh my god we did
it and then I started looking at the
substance of the pictures that varied
topography
really wild stuff Miranda is a blend of
all the exotic surfaced topographies
found in our solar system wrapped into
one
according to Voyager project scientist
dr. edward stone what was surprising was
the extent and the diversity of the
geologic processes which were evident on
the surface where it's much too cold to
melt anything yet somehow that surface
has moved has been reshaped by an
internal heat source of unknown
magnitude in the image processing lab at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena California voyager imaging
scientist dr. Terrence Johnson reviews
Miranda's most dramatic feature an icy
Rift Valley with sheer cliffs over ten
miles high looking across here you're
looking at cross something that's at
saying what is ten times deeper than the
Grand Canyon now in deep space Voyager
is on a three-year journey to Neptune as
it continues to show us images of worlds
we have never seen before