Talk:Voyager 2

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An event mentioned in this article is an August 20 selected anniversary.

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[edit] Star Trek 5?

I'd have to watch the awful movie again to make sure, but isn't the probe shot by the Klingons in Star Trek V actually Pioneer 10 or 11? I thought I spotted those two finned RTGs.

You're right, it's one of the Pioneers: there's a shot of the plaque. Was there any visual differences between the two? Seems like I heard that P11 had a second boom of some sort. CFLeon 02:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voyager 2 trajectory

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1977-076A-traj.html not as parameters but direct distances to the sun/the planets visited, in case anyone is interested just because I added a similar link to Talk:Voyager 1 and found it hard to find --Deelkar (talk) 05:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mariner 12?

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that Voyager 2 was initially designated Mariner 11 and Voyager 1 was Mariner 12. It may have been from an article in Science around the time of the launches (1977).--Clemmentine 01:24, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The only corroborating evidence is this PowerPoint presentation: http://www.it.lth.se/Kodningsteknik/lectures/ECCintro.pdf which lists the Mariners in order of launch dates, which does imply Voyager 2 = Mariner 11 (launched in August) and Voyager 1 = Mariner 12 (launched in September).
On the other hand, all other mentions Google finds seem to be taken from Wikipedia, so the evidence is weak in either direction. Gatland's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology does not say.
Interestingly, Viking was originally called Voyager, at which time Voyager was called Grand Tour.
According to http://home.cwru.edu/~sjr16/advanced/20th_far_voyagers.html, Voyager 1 and 2 were also called "Mariner Jupiter/Saturn A" and "B", respectively, which seems to map to Mariner 11 and 12 better. Urhixidur 05:34, 2005 Jan 13 (UTC)

[edit] Alignments?

Every 175 years or every 200 is not going to make much difference. The synodic periods of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune with respect to Jupiter are 19.88, 13.82 and 12.79 years, respectively. They don't factor well into each other. Those of Uranus and Neptune with respect to Saturn are 45.33 and 35.86 years, and that of Neptune with respect to Uranus is 171.54 years.

If you line up the giant planets (which never happens) and wait 171.531 years, they'll line up again within 40° or so of each other (Saturn would be ahead of Neptune by 31.7° and Uranus behind by 8.5°, Jupiter in between). Urhixidur 00:12, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

175 years came from http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/planetary.html . I've also seen 176 years quoted elsewhere. It's my bad choice of words in using 'alignment' when I should have used something like 'geometric arrangement'. I'll fix that. Thanks for pointing that out.--Clemmentine 01:33, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major cleanup--achieved stub status.

I've done a major cleanup. Gone is the Voyager Golder Record (linked from Voyager program), Launch/Jup/Sat/Ur/Neptune all have different sections now. Science result unique to Voyager 2 (not Voyager 1) added, should have science section in Voyager program.

Began decent Uranus and Neptune sections, as Voyager 2 is the only craft to visit these planets.

See talk in Talk:Voyager program.

[edit] Selected anniversary

An event mentioned in this article is an August 20 selected anniversary. No it isn't! But, it's listed on the (IMHO) rather arbitrary date August 24, when the probe in 2003 "was 71 astronomical units distant from Earth". Why is this date important at all? -DBrane 08:34, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uranus tilt

"Uranus has an Axial tilt of 97.77°". Reading the definition of axial tilt I don't understand the meaning of a figure greater than 90 degrees.

According to Uranus#Axial_tilt the number greater than 90 degrees is based upon the direction of rotation. (SEWilco 06:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC))
Yep, all planet except Uranus have the same rotation direction as orbital direction (Counter-clockwise looking from the above the North pole of the sun), and theories of solar system formation say they should be the same, so whatever hit Uranus knocked it more than 90 degs off axis. Angles above 180 don't make any sense though. JamesHoadley 10:23, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural References

This is minor compared to the other problems, but the same three cultural references attributed to Voyager 2 are attributed to Voyager 1 on the Voyager 1 page.

They're not now! I didn't delete it and I've never seen it like that. The Voyager program page does have some different ones. Remember to sign your messages on talk pages with ~~~~. JamesHoadley 14:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm ereasing the references to the YTMND sites. I like YTMND, but we don't need to clutter every article with every random YTMND that is made. Nanded 00:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date of launch

Was Voyager 2 launched a month before Voyager 1? Because that's what wikipedia is telling people. --82.29.226.251 20:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was the case. Voyager 1 was (and still is) faster so it reached Jupiter well before Voyager 2.--JyriL talk 20:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curiosity of phraseology

At present [15:33 GMT 25/8/06] this article uses the phrase "when every major planet in the solar system had now been visited at least once by human-made spacecraft."
Does this imply that there is evidence that some/all have been visited by extra-terrestrial craft, and if so what is the citation, please ? -- Simon Cursitor 15:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

The last sentence of the Jupiter section doesn't match the text when I try to edit it. In the article the grammar and spelling are terrible but when I go to the edit section, everthing is correct. Someone with more power please edit.161.184.182.112 09:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] text source issue

Certain fragments of the article have been apparently taken from the narrative of BBC's The Planets series, episode 3: Giants. I wonder if it's fine with Wikipedia principles... ;-) Ijon-Tichy 22:58, 15 December 2006 (UTC)