dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (03/24/85)
Voyager 2 will encounter the planet Uranus exactly 10 months from today. More -- after this. March 24 Ten Months to Uranus The two Voyager spacecraft gave us our best looks yet at the outer planets Jupiter and Saturn. Now Voyager 1 is heading out of the solar system -- and Voyager 2 is on its way to the next planet outward, Uranus -- with ten months to go to encounter on January 24, 1986. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus is a gas giant world. It's about four times bigger than Earth -- with a large core of hot liquid rock and metal, surrounded by a thick layer of ice -- with probably a vast interior liquid sea over that. But above all this is the deep atmosphere of Uranus, topped out with dense clouds -- the only part of the planet we actually see. Voyager 2 will pass within 66 thousand miles of the Uranian cloudtops. Radio signals from the spacecraft will pass through the fringes of the clouds on their way back to Earth -- revealing the temperature and pressure of that uppermost portion of the Uranian atmosphere. Uranus is one of the least known worlds in the solar system. We know it has no fewer than five moons -- and a system of skinny rings. And we know it spins on an axis that's tipped over nearly sideways compared to the other planets. But Uranus is far from the sun -- in a region of the solar system where the planets are far apart -- and the sun's light is dim. Uranus can't be seen very well from Earth -- but if all goes well Voyager 2 will let us see it -- sharp, clear and close-up -- ten months from today. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin