Probing Uranus

William Herschel really should've thought about future fourth graders when naming his discovery, but whatever:

On Jan. 24, 1986, about 11 hours before its closest approach to Uranus, Voyager 2 entered the planet’s magnetosphere. The spacecraft’s instruments revealed that Uranus’ magnetic field dipole was tilted by 59 degrees compared to its rotational axis and offset from the planet’s center by about one-third of the planet’s radius, unlike any previously observed planetary magnetic field. 

As Voyager 2 continued to approach Uranus, it imaged the planet’s large satellites, passing just 18,000 miles from Miranda, the closest encounter Voyager 2 had made with any celestial body to that point. The images returned revealed each moon to be unique and showed more geologic activity than expected. 

Voyager 2 then made its closest approach of 50,700 miles above the Uranian cloud tops, passing behind the planet so its radio signals could provide information about its upper atmosphere. As it traveled away from Uranus, Voyager returned images of the planet and its rings backlit by the Sun, concluding the encounter phase on Feb. 25, 1986. 

In all, the spacecraft returned more than 7,000 photographs, revealing 11 new moons, the innermost ones being intricately involved with the ring system, and two new rings orbiting the planet, and a wealth of information for scientists to analyze for years to come. In March 2020, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, published a reanalysis of data from the Voyager 2 Uranus flyby, finding that a giant magnetic bubble known as a plasmoid may have been slowly whisking the planet’s atmosphere out to space.  

The gravity assist from Uranus sent Voyager 2 on towards Neptune, a planet the spacecraft explored in 1989.  Following its reconnaissance of Neptune, Voyager 2 began its Interstellar Mission extension that continues to this day...

Voyager 2 is indeed still kicking, currently almost 20 light hours away.  Waking up today to more regime violence, I kinda wish I could be, too.