Word: spacecrafts
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...data used to create the image had arrived in California by an unusual route. Looking for ways to view Halley's comet at perihelion, Ames scientists had hit upon the idea of using the Pioneer 12 spacecraft, which has been orbiting Venus since December 1978, surveying the planet with an array of instruments. Around the time of Halley's perihelion, they realized, Venus--and thus Pioneer--would be in position to have a direct view of the comet. Late in December the scientists ordered the spacecraft to pivot 90 degrees and point its ultraviolet scanner at the comet...
Largely overshadowed by the tragic loss of Challenger, the feats of the indomitable Voyager 2 last week provided the only bright notes during the U.S. space program's darkest hours. As the 1,800-lb. spacecraft sped away from its close encounter with Uranus, it continued its flawless performance, transmitting data and pictures that are gradually stripping away some of the mysteries of the planet. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., nearly 2 billion miles away, William McLaughlin, the Voyager flight- engineering manager, could speak only in superlatives as he reviewed the data. Said he: "I think...
Indeed, having brilliantly explored Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1981, Voyager had already compiled an enviable record. Now the spacecraft was on the verge of duplicating its earlier, spectacular accomplishments. At week's end it had already discovered ten tiny Uranian moons and sent back incredibly detailed photographs of the five larger, previously known satellites. It had photographed the nine known rings and found at least two more. The versatile spacecraft also managed to pry a bewildering volume of information from Uranus itself, despite the fact that the giant planet is shrouded by a thick and opaque blue-green...
...fact, some astronomers have long suspected that it was a catastrophic event, perhaps a collision with an earth-size object, that toppled Uranus on its side (see chart); it spins with its rotational axis practically perpendicular to those of most of the other planets. The spacecraft raised even more questions about Uranus when it discovered that the planet has a magnetic field about as strong as earth's but topsy-turvy by terrestrial standards, with the north magnetic pole displaced by 55 degrees from the south geographic pole. The odd arrangement led scientists to speculate that Voyager had caught...
...magnetic field also helped scientists calculate the length of a Uranian day. By detecting the changing radio emissions caused by the interaction of the field with the solar wind as the planet turns on its axis, the spacecraft established that Uranus rotates once approximately every 17 hours. The technique, explained Physicist James Warwick, can be likened to standing on a lawn and "feeling the water drops every time a sprinkler goes around." By tracking clouds in the atmosphere, Voyager discovered high-altitude winds moving around the planet at 220 m.p.h., more than twice as fast as they travel above...