Say this for the Cold War: it did a lot of good for the state of space exploration. Advances in rocketry became especially important for both sides, as the rockets that could carry scientific instruments into space could also presumably deliver nuclear payloads across continents. But military posturing aside, there was a genuine curiosity about what lies at the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond, and it was with that in mind that NASA launched a twin spacecraft. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched to investigate the planets around the edge and further.

On this day, January 24, 1986, after a brief stopover at Neptune, Voyager 2 made one of the closest passes ever by Uranus, coming within range of the planet’s magnetic field and discovering ten previously undetected moons. Its photographic mission complete, Voyager 2 then continued on its journey outward. It remains the only spacecraft to have come near both the outer planets.

Voyager 1, meanwhile, looped around Jupiter and Saturn, beaming back some 18,000 photographs, and continued outward as well. Both spacecrafts carried on board a “golden record” with a selection of classical pieces and a variety of earth sounds, recording the basic information about our planet.