In late 1981, when NASA decided to proceed with the Grand Tour by directing Voyager 2 to Uranus and Neptune, knowledge of both planets remained sketchy. With this in mind, the February 1984 conference at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, afforded all the key stakeholders an opportunity to take stock of what was known about the two distant worlds and plan a comprehensive campaign of observations. Working groups for both planetary encounters were assembled and the Neptune team presented its final report in July 1987. One of the key focal points was the question of rings. By the late 1970s, it was definitively recognised that the other three giant planets had ring systems: those of Saturn had been observed for centuries, while those of Uranus were found after a stellar occultation in March 1977 and Voyager 1 had revealed Jupiter’s rings in early 1979.
Wild Neptune
Springer Praxis Books(formerly: Springer-Praxis Series)
2022-08-24
25 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Engineering Index Backfile | 1938
|NTRS | 1970
NTRS | 1988
|AIAA | 1988
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