The probe was launched in 1977, but it continues to transmit space data daily to a team of NASA scientists.
Published on November 14, 2026
NASA has announced that its Voyager 1 probe will soon become the first human object to travel within a light day of Earth.
On Wednesday, the robotic space probe will reach the milestone of having traveled at least 16 billion kilometers since its launch in 1977, a distance equal to one light day, or the distance that light can travel in 24 hours.
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The probe completed its flyby of Saturn in 1980, the end of its primary planetary mission, and is currently traveling at about 36,000 miles per hour (58 km/h) in interstellar space, the vast space between stars.
NASA predicts it will take 18,000 years to travel a full light year, and twice that before approaching another star.
Voyager 1, powered by plutonium, was launched shortly before another probe, Voyager 2. Both continue to transmit data to Earth daily, including measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field as well as surrounding pressure, dust and galactic cosmic rays.
Voyager 2 is expected to reach one light day from Earth in 2035.
Both are kept active by a core team of NASA engineers who send commands about once a week, and more if the probe encounters problems.
In October, the team briefly lost communication with Voyager 1, and they haven’t yet figured out why.
Voyager 1 project manager Suzanne Dodd described Voyager 1 as “a national treasure” and told the Associated Press news agency that the activities of the two probes are akin to those of weather satellites.
The cultural impact of the investigation was significant. The famous “Pale Blue Dot” photo of Earth was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.
“All of us – everyone on Earth – have been affected by these missions,” Bill Nye of the Planetary Society said in a statement.
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