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Guided tour · 8 stops
🛰 On the trail of the space probes
A journey through time to the great moments of spaceflight – with the probe in exactly the right place.
- 1969: The first step
On 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to set foot on the Moon. Around 600 million people follow the landing live on television.
- 1979: Voyager 2 at Jupiter
Voyager 2 reaches Jupiter and photographs its moons. A rare alignment of the planets allows it to hop onwards from planet to planet – the “Grand Tour”.
- 1986: Uranus
Voyager 2 visits Uranus – so far the only probe to do so – and discovers ten new moons.
- 1989: Neptune
Twelve years after launch, Voyager 2 reaches Neptune – its radio signals take more than four hours to reach Earth. After that it flies out into interstellar space.
- 1986: A visit to Halley
In March 1986 the European probe Giotto flies through the coma of Comet Halley and takes the first ever photographs of a comet's nucleus – as black as coal.
- 2004: Cassini at Saturn
After a flight of almost seven years, Cassini swings into orbit around Saturn and spends 13 years exploring the ringed planet and its moons.
- 2015: Pluto up close
After nine and a half years, New Horizons races past Pluto. For the first time we see the dwarf planet in sharp detail – and discover its heart.
- Today: Voyager 1
Voyager 1 is now the most distant thing ever made by humans – soon a whole light-day away. On board is the Golden Record, a greeting from humankind to the cosmos.
In the 3D model the camera flies from stop to stop. The narrator’s voice is computer-generated.
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