Planetary Exploration

Since the 1950’s and the start of space flight our knowledge of the planets of our solar system has been greatly expanded.

Some planets have been visited many times and have been landed upon such as Mars and Venus and some have been explored over long periods of time by orbiting satellites such as Jupiter. Others such as Neptune have been visited by just one probe. Pluto has never been visited, but even our knowledge of that distant world has been expanded by the better images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Probably the most famous of these missions is the two Voyager space craft. Launched in the 1970’s both passed Jupiter and Saturn and then Voyager one went on to study Uranus and Neptune. Even today, many years after launch, they are returning useful information as they head out of the solar system and explore the boundary with the interstellar medium.

Please use the links below for information on the exploration of the individual planets and their moons.