[X] My Assistant

[Superstring]

In light of the coming rendezvous with Ceres and the Pluto-Charon system, I thought I'd start a conversation about what everyone considers to be the most exciting years in solar system exploration. I think 1969 is obviously the most exciting year for manned exploration, so for this topic I'd like to focus more on the robotic missions.

Here are the ones I consider the top 3 contenders:

1965 - Mariner 4 sends back the first pictures of another world's surface other than Earth & Luna, revealing Mars to be utterly different than many had imagined.
1979 - Voyager 1 & 2 are the first to image the surfaces of the 4 Galilean Moons, revealing their surprising natures on a global scale.
2015 - If all goes as planned, Dawn and New Horizons will image the surfaces of 3 never-explored worlds (Ceres, Pluto, and Charon) in high resolution.

Some other notable years...

1972 - Mariner 9 is the first craft to orbit another planet, and dramatically expands the scope of Mars imagery.
1974 - Mariner 10 images Venus and Mercury for the first time.
1975 - Venera 9 is the first probe to take photos from the surface of another planet.
1980 - Voyager 1 explores Saturn and several of its moons.
1986 - Voyager 2 explores the Uranus system.
1989 - Voyager 2 explores Neptune and Triton, discovering a world with nitrogen geysers.
2005 - Huygens lands on Titan, and Cassini reveals the dark side of Iapetus and the plumes of Enceladus.
2014 - Rosetta is the first craft to image a comet in high resolution and the first to land a probe on a comet.

All just my opinion. What say you?