Thirty years ago, on Aug. 25, 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft made a close flyby of Neptune, giving humanity its first close-up of our solar system’s eighth planet.

Voyager 2, NASA's longest-running mission, explored Neptune during a historic encounter on Aug. 25, 1989, sending back humanity's first close-ups of the planet.

Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, embarked on a historic journey to explore the ...

On Aug. 20, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 spacecraft on a mission to explore the outer planets. Despite its name, this was the first of two Voyager missions NASA launched that year. Thanks to ...

On July 9, 1979, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter. It came within 354,000 miles (570,000 kilometers) of the planet's cloud tops. Voyager 2 was one of two space ...

When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune 40 years ago, astronomers were surprised that it detected no global dipole magnetic fields, like Earth's. The explanation: the ice giants are layered and ...

Now, a new look at the data has revealed that Voyager 2 happened to zoom by the distant planet during a rare event, which suggests that scientists’ current understanding of the planet may have ...

These NASA images of Uranus (left) and Neptune were taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, with models of the planets' interior structures seen in the inset. These modeled structures have two distinct ...

Passing 3,000 miles above the north polar region of the blue planet, Voyager 2 then plunged down, out of the plane of the solar system, for a close encounter with Neptune's largest moon, Triton.

What it is: One of the final photographs of Neptune taken by NASA's Voyager 2 probe Where it is: 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the sun When it was taken: Aug. 25, 1989 When it was ...

Voyager 2’s data showed that Uranus’ magnetosphere was home to unexpectedly powerful electron radiation belts. Their intensity was similar to the massive bands of radiation found around Jupiter.