Ed Stone, Leading Scientist On The Voyager Mission, Passes Away At 88
12th Jun 2024
On Tuesday, 11th June, Ed Stone passed away at the age of 88. He was a scientist who directed NASA’s pioneering Voyager mission to the outer planets for five decades and oversaw the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during its successful landing of the first rover on Mars.
Ed Stone’s Role In Space Exploration
Ed Stone was a pioneering physicist in the early days of space exploration. He played a crucial role in NASA missions to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The discoveries made under his leadership transformed scientists’ understanding of the solar system and inspired humanity’s ambition to explore distant worlds.
Also, Ed Stone and his team of over 200 science collaborators were the first to discover lightning on Jupiter and volcanoes on its moon Io. They identified six previously unknown moons around Saturn and found evidence of the largest ocean in the solar system on Jupiter’s moon Europa, as well as geysers on Neptune’s moon Triton.
Ed Stone And Voyager Mission
The Voyager 1 spacecraft became the first human-made object to reach interstellar space in 2012, with Voyager 2 following in 2018.
The twin probes continue to communicate weekly with Earth from interstellar space.
Stone retired in 2022, marking the mission’s 50th anniversary.
R.I.P. to a passionate scientist and space explorer!
It would be a greater compliment to Ed (indeed “a passionate scientist and space explorer!”) if you got his date of death correct. He died June 9, not June 11.