A Historic Collision: JPL Scientists Gather to Witness Voyager 2’s Encounter with Neptune’s Magnetosphere and Predict the Exact Time

In the halls of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists eagerly gathered to witness Voyager 2’s encounter with Neptune’s magnetosphere. To mark this historic event, they created a prediction pool to guess when the spacecraft would collide with the “bow shock” of Neptune’s magnetic field.

The list was scrawled on a chalkboard in one of JPL’s science rooms, and it was based on Pacific Daylight Time-Earth Received Time (PDT-ERT), which is when the data from Voyager 2 would be received back at JPL. Only five entries were made, starting from Day of Year (DOY) 235, which falls on August 23rd in non-leap years.

I was among those who made a prediction, believing that the spacecraft would encounter a smaller magnetic field further from the planet. I predicted that the bow shock would occur at 12 noon on DOY 236, which translates to August 24th at 1454 GMT-SCET. However, it turned out that the Plasma Science experiment actually detected the bow shock on August 24th at slightly earlier time of 1438 GMT-SCET. Despite my error in prediction, it is truly remarkable that we were able to witness this incredible event and document it for future generations to study and learn from.