To save someone two seconds of searching,
NASA animation of Voyager 2's trajectory (time in the bottom-left corner): https://youtu.be/l8TA7BU2Bvo
To save someone two seconds of searching,
NASA animation of Voyager 2's trajectory (time in the bottom-left corner): https://youtu.be/l8TA7BU2Bvo
I know that space is incredibly empty, but the vast expanse of space just boggles my mind so much. Even a slight miscalculation could have meant that the spacecraft hit that massive grid rotating around the orbit of Neptune.
This is great. I did not realize Voyager 2 also left the ecliptic at the end of its tour.
That happened because Voyager 2 went over Neptune's north pole rather than an equatorial trajectory. Both to get a look at a giant planet's polar regions, and because that would get it closest to the moon Triton. So Voyager 2's trajectory got bent southward out of the ecliptic plane as a result of that.
While I'm here: why didn't Voyager 2 continue to slingshot to Pluto? The answer is that its trajectory would have had to bend by about 90° at Neptune, which would have required an apex closer to Neptune's center of mass than the planet's own radius - it would have crashed into the planet instead.
How much do/can they use their own thrusters to change/correct their directions? I'm guessing it's just fractions of a degree? And needs to be extremely precise, done weeks? before reaching the next planet to slingshot around?