Press Release

In 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president, Elvis died, Virginia park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning a record seventh time and two NASA space probes destined to turn planetary science on its head launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The identical spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were launched in the summer and programmed to pass by Jupiter and Saturn on different paths. Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune, completing the “Grand Tour of the Solar System,” perhaps the most exciting interplanetary mission ever flown.  University of Colorado Boulder scientists, who designed and built identical instruments for Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were as stunned as anyone when the spacecraft began sending back data to Earth.

The discoveries by Voyager started piling up: Twenty-three new planetary moons at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon, Io; Jupiter’s ring system; organic smog shrouding Saturn’s moon, Titan; the braided, intertwined structure of Saturn’s rings; the solar system’s fastest winds (on Neptune, about 1,200 miles per hour); and nitrogen geysers spewing from Neptune’s moon, Triton.

A divisive proposal to review online schools in Colorado has been rejected despite calls for more oversight about online schooling.

Colorado's Legislative Audit Committee hit a partisan 4-4 divide on whether the state needs to take a new look at its online K-12 schools. About 2 percent of public school students in Colorado are enrolled in online schools, or about 2 percent of all students.