Solar System Portrait
Explanation:
On another
Valentine's Day
(February 14, 1990), cruising four billion
miles from the Sun, the
Voyager 1
spacecraft looked back to make this
first ever family portrait
of our Solar System.
The complete portrait is a
60 frame mosaic
made from a vantage point 32 degrees above the
ecliptic plane.
Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the
inner Solar System (far left) linking up with
gas giant Neptune, at the time
the
Solar System's outermost planet (scroll right).
Positions
for Venus,
Earth, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
are indicated by the corresponding letters while the Sun is the
bright spot near the center of the circle of frames.
The
inset frames
for each of the planets are
from Voyager's narrow field camera.
Unseen in the portrait are
Mercury, too close to the Sun
to be detected, and Mars, unfortunately hidden by sunlight
scattered in the camera's optical system.
Small, faint
Pluto's
position was not covered.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
