Voyager 2 flies past Neptune

After twelve years of travel, Voyager 2 passed 4,800 km above the cloud tops of Neptune on 25 August 1989, the only spacecraft ever to visit the planet. It found a storm called the Great Dark Spot, supersonic winds, a set of rings, six new moons, and, on the large moon Triton, geysers of nitrogen on an icy surface. The encounter completed the first reconnaissance of all four giant planets, a tour that was possible only because of the alignment of the planets in the late 1970s.

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