Launched in 1977 the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Each is three times farther away from the Earth and Sun than Pluto is, and travelling at 10 miles a second. In 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars. Incredibly, these spacecraft are still communicating with NASA and sending usable data.
Credit: Andrew Fox for the Telegraph
Prof Bunce is current President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and head of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, from where she joined us by Zoom to give this lockdown lecture.
It was 31 years ago, in 1989, that Voyager 2 made a close flyby of Neptune, giving humanity its first close-up of our solar system’s eighth planet. No other spacecraft has visited Neptune since. Prof Bunce hopes this will change. A teenager when Voyager’s Neptune fly-by occurred, Emma credits this event with first sparking her interest in astronomy. Today she is a leading expert on the solar system’s gas giants.