In 1977, NASA launched the twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, capitalizing on a rare planetary alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune that occurs only once every 175 years. This Grand Tour utilized six gravity assists to provide close-up observations of the gas and ice giants and their moons. By the 1980s, the probes diverged at Saturn; while Voyager 2 continued toward Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1 captured a final portrait of the solar system, famously including an image of Earth known as the pale blue dot.
Each spacecraft carries a Golden Record, a 12-inch phonograph record containing spoken greetings in 55 languages, 27 musical tracks, 116 images, and various sounds from Earth. The records are housed in protective covers featuring etchings that map the Sun's location relative to 14 pulsars and include instructions for playback. To shield the data from space radiation, the design incorporates copper and gold plating on the record and an aluminum cover electroplated with ultra-pure uranium-238, an isotope with a half-life of 4.468 billion years.
Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, the boundary where solar wind meets the interstellar medium, in August 2012, followed by Voyager 2 in November 2018. NASA continues to track both spacecraft using the Deep Space Network. At the time of this report, the Canberra antenna recorded Voyager 1 at a distance of 25.80 billion kilometers, or just over 16 billion miles. On November 18, 2026, exactly 49 years after its launch, Voyager 1 will reach the one-light-day mark, positioning it 16.1 billion miles from the Sun.
Sources: NASA Breaking News.