In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, leveraging a rare planetary alignment that occurs once every 175 years. This alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune allowed for a Grand Tour, utilizing gravity assists to provide close-up observations of these planets and their moons. After parting ways at Saturn in the 1980s, Voyager 2 proceeded to Uranus and Neptune, while Voyager 1 captured a final portrait of the solar system, including the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” image of Earth.
“Hello from the children of planet Earth.”
The Voyager spacecraft carry the Golden Record, a 12-inch phonograph record containing a message from Earth. It includes greetings in 55 languages, 27 musical selections, 116 images, and various sounds. The record is housed in a protective aluminum cover electroplated with uranium-238, which has a half-life of 4.468 billion years, ensuring durability against space radiation. The cover also features etchings that depict the Sun’s location relative to 14 pulsars and provide instructions for playback.
A light-minute is a unit of distance, equivalent to the distance light travels in one minute. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause—the boundary where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium—in August 2012 and November 2018, respectively. NASA’s Deep Space Network facilitates communication and tracking of the spacecraft. As of now, Voyager 1 is located approximately 25.80 billion kilometers away, as monitored by the Canberra antenna.
On November 18, 2026, marking 49 years since its launch, Voyager 1 will reach the one-light-day distance, which is 16.1 billion miles from the Sun. The term light-year is commonly used in science fiction and astronomy to describe objects beyond our solar system. For an illustrative comparison of distances within and beyond the solar system, see this video, which uses light measurements to demonstrate the scales. You can also track the Voyager spacecraft in real-time.
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