The Voyager Journey

Students follow Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 from their 1977 launches past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and out into interstellar space, learning about gravity assists, the major discoveries at each planet, the Golden Record and how the spacecraft keep working.

Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops7 stops

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What students will see and do

Students fly from Earth to each giant planet the Voyagers visited, then pull back to the whole solar system for the Pale Blue Dot and the crossing into interstellar space. Aetherion pauses for discussion at Earth (gravity assists), Jupiter (unexpected evidence on Io) and Neptune (what a new mission should study).

Learning objectives

• Explain how a gravity assist lets a spacecraft gain speed and change direction by flying close to a planet.
• Identify one major Voyager discovery at each of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
• Describe the heliosphere and what it means that the Voyagers have entered interstellar space.
• Use the one light-day distance to reason about the time radio signals take to travel across the solar system.

NGSS connections

Stops on this journey

1. A Rare Line Up (discussion stop)
2. Volcanoes at Jupiter (discussion stop)
3. Rings and a Hazy Moon
4. The Sideways Planet
5. Neptune and the Geysers (discussion stop)
6. The Pale Blue Dot
7. Into Interstellar Space

Vocabulary

• gravity assist
• flyby
• heliosphere
• solar wind
• interstellar space
• light-day
• radioisotope power
• Golden Record