Pioneer 11 at Jupiter (Illustration)

NASA selected three winners out of nine finalists in the second annual Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for elementary through high school students featuring the power of radioisotopes for space exploration.

NASA selected 9 finalists out of the 45 semi-finalists student essays in the Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes.

NASA has selected 45 semi-finalist of the Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes.

NASA’s second Power to Explore Challenge inspires learning about how radioisotope power systems help us explore the extremes of our solar system. Credit: NASA/Gayle Dibiasio (ATS)

Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) have provided the power to explore some of the deepest, darkest, and most distant destinations in the solar system and beyond. Voyager 1 is NASA’s furthest traveled spacecraft, and its science mission has been enabled by RPS for 45 years.

Celebrating 45 years of Voyager I and II in space