This Day in History: 1977-08-20

NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Before the Voyager program (in which Voyager 1 and 2 probes launched in the summer of 1977), planetary science was a male-dominated field. For planetary scientist and astrophysicist Fran Bagenal, planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel, Voyager imaging team Candice Hansen, and planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, breaking into these ranks was no small feat.