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Description
When I did this work in Oct. 1981, I was looking ahead to when the Voyager spacecraft would encounter/ fly by planet Uranus. And it did - on Jan. 24, 1986, after being launched from Earth on Aug. 20, 1977. Upon touching up on, copying, and submitting this work, I am looking back in time thus. Here, Voyager 2 moves toward Neptune, as we look at the dark Uranian south hemisphere. The Sun at the top of the picture is nearly 1.8 billion miles away and illuminates the planet and its narrow rings with 1/368th as much light per unit area as we get. Planet Venus has a close conjunction in the evening sky with dim Uranus as this is submitted, and the Voyager 2 spacecraft fly on, now over 8.1 billion miles from the Sun! When will we send an orbiter spacecraft next to Uranus to reveal it and its many moons as never before?

Description
When I did this work in Oct. 1981, I was looking ahead to when the Voyager spacecraft would encounter/ fly by planet Uranus. And it did - on Jan. 24, 1986, after being launched from Earth on Aug. 20, 1977. Upon touching up on, copying, and submitting this work, I am looking back in time thus. Here, Voyager 2 moves toward Neptune, as we look at the dark Uranian south hemisphere. The Sun at the top of the picture is nearly 1.8 billion miles away and illuminates the planet and its narrow rings with 1/368th as much light per unit area as we get. Planet Venus has a close conjunction in the evening sky with dim Uranus as this is submitted, and the Voyager 2 spacecraft fly on, now over 8.1 billion miles from the Sun! When will we send an orbiter spacecraft next to Uranus to reveal it and its many moons as never before?