25 Years After Neptune

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25 Years After Neptune: Reflections on Voyager

August 25, 1989: Neptune is in view. It is the middle of the night and everything is happening fast at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Voyager team members have had little or no sleep. Vice President Dan Quayle is on the scene and Chuck Berry, of "Johnny B. Goode" fame, is prepping for an outdoor party. This will be "the last picture show" of the grand tour of the solar system by NASA's Voyager mission.

Fast forward to August 25, 2014: New Horizons, the first mission sent to explore dwarf planet Pluto and other icy objects within the Kuiper Belt, is less than one year away from its arrival. And today, New Horizons will cross Neptune's orbit -- the very day that Voyager 2 flew past Neptune 25 years ago.

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