Modern Era · North America · Exploration

1977

Voyager space probes launch

August 20, 1977

NASA launched the twin Voyager probes to the outer planets carrying gold records with greetings in fifty-five languages and sounds of Earth. Over the next decade they sent back close-up pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Decades later they left the solar system, humanity's first interstellar objects, carrying our greetings into the silence.

More from 1977 Modern Era

In context

Also in 1977 (4 other events on record)

Apple II and Star Wars · North America · Culture
Steve Biko killed in custody · Africa · Politics
Elvis dies at Graceland · North America · Culture
New York blackout · North America · Disaster

Before and after in North America

Before: 1975: Jaws invents the summer blockbuster
After: November 27, 1978: Harvey Milk assassinated

Before and after in Exploration

Before: July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the Moon
After: November 12, 2014: Rosetta lands on a comet

Era

Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.