Where is Voyager 1 now?

25,856,376,316

kilometres · Voyager 1's distance from Earth

Voyager 1 is about 25.9 billion kilometres from Earth. No object we have made has gone farther. A radio signal from Earth takes 23 h 57 m 27 s to reach it, and the trip grows longer every second. As of 18 October 2026 it moves at 16.92 kilometres per second relative to the Sun. Since you opened this page, it has travelled another 0 kilometres. On 18 November 2026 it becomes the first spacecraft a full light-day from home. It is still sending back what it measures, from beyond the Sun's own wind.

Time for light from Earth to reach Voyager 1

23 h 57 m 27 s

Measured

Live · as of 31 Oct 2026

Voyager 1's speed relative to the Sun

16.92 km/s

Measured

Time until Voyager 1 is one light-day away

18 d 07 h 30 m 28 s

Measured

Time since Voyager 1's launch

49 y 55 d 7 h

Measured

How far is that?

Past every planet, past the Sun's own wind

Voyager 1 is a robotic spacecraft that NASA launched in 1977 to fly past Jupiter and Saturn. It never stopped. It is still heading outward, and still sending us what it measures.

On this line, each step is ten times farther than the last. Jupiter circles the Sun at about 5.2 times Earth's distance. Neptune, the last planet, circles at about 30. Voyager 1 is far past both, 25.8 billion kilometres from the Sun.

It has also passed the edge of the Sun's bubble, where the solar wind gives way to the gas between the stars. Nothing else we have built has been so far from home.

Yet look how much of the line is still empty. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2465 light-years away. Light from Voyager reaches us in less than a day. Light from Proxima needs years. Our farthest traveller has only begun the crossing.

25,762,357,186 kmVoyager 1's distance from the Sun

5 September 1977

The faster road out

Voyager 1 left Cape Canaveral on 5 September 1977, a little after its twin, Voyager 2. It took a faster, shorter route, and it passed Voyager 2 on 15 December 1977.

It reached Jupiter on 5 March 1979. There the Voyagers saw active volcanoes on the moon Io, the first ever seen on another world. At Saturn, on 12 November 1980, it flew close past the moon Titan. Its thick haze hid the surface completely.

That close pass bent Voyager 1's path north, up and out of the plane where the planets orbit. So it never went on to Uranus or Neptune. It took the fast road out instead. On 17 February 1998 it overtook Pioneer 10 and became the farthest object we have ever made.

16.92 km/sVoyager 1's speed relative to the Sun

14 February 1990

It turned around and took a picture of us

By early 1990 Voyager 1 had passed every planet it would ever visit. Carl Sagan, a member of its imaging team, had first suggested in 1981 that it look back at home. On 14 February 1990 it did, and took the first family portrait of the planets.

From about 6 billion kilometres away, Earth was a crescent only 0.12 of a pixel in size. It sits in a ray of sunlight scattered inside the camera. Everyone who has ever lived is in that point of light.

Minutes after the Earth frames, Voyager 1 switched off its cameras for good, to save power for the long road ahead. No spacecraft has tried to take that family portrait since.

6,050,000,000 kmVoyager 1's distance from Earth when it took the Pale Blue Dot

25 August 2012

It left the Sun's bubble

The Sun blows a wind of charged particles in every direction. It carves a bubble, the heliosphere, in the gas between the stars. The edge of that bubble is called the heliopause.

Voyager 1 crossed it on 25 August 2012, about 120 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. It became the first object we made to sail in interstellar space.

At first nobody could be sure. Its plasma instrument had stopped working in 1980, so it could not see the solar wind fade. Almost a year later, its plasma wave instrument picked up the hum of much denser gas around it. That was the sign: outside the bubble, the gas between the stars is colder and denser than the Sun's wind.

121.6 AUVoyager 1's distance from the Sun when it crossed the heliopause

As of 17 April 2026

Two instruments still listening

Voyager 1 runs on electricity made from the heat of decaying plutonium. The supply shrinks a little every year. So engineers switch parts off, in an order the team agreed years ago.

The cameras went dark in 1990, right after the Pale Blue Dot. The cosmic ray instrument followed on 25 February 2025, and the low-energy particle instrument on 17 April 2026. As of that date, 2 still work: the magnetometer and the plasma wave instrument.

On Voyager 2, engineers have since freed up power by swapping several devices for lower-power ones at once, a move nicknamed the "Big Bang". NASA plans the same for Voyager 1. That might even let the particle instrument come back on.

2Voyager 1 science instruments still switched on

18 November 2026 · 10:16 UTC

One light-day

Light covers about 25.9 billion kilometres in a day. On 18 November 2026 at 10:16 UTC, Voyager 1 will be that far from Earth. No object we have made has been a light-day away before.

After that, a message we send at breakfast reaches Voyager the following breakfast. Its answer reaches us the morning after that. Every question to the spacecraft becomes a conversation across days.

The gap keeps growing. Over a year it wobbles a little, as Earth swings around the Sun, but Voyager never turns back. Each day, the signal's trip is a little longer than the day before.

18 d 07 h 30 m 28 sTime until Voyager 1 is one light-day away

Questions people ask

How far is Voyager 1 from Earth right now?

About 25.9 billion kilometres. The distance changes every second. Over a year it even wobbles a little, because Earth moves around the Sun while Voyager moves steadily away.

Has Voyager 1 left the solar system?

It left the Sun's bubble of solar wind, the heliosphere, on 25 August 2012, so it is in interstellar space. But the Sun's gravity still rules far beyond it, out to the icy Oort cloud. NASA estimates it will take about 300 years to reach the cloud's inner edge, and possibly about 30,000 years to pass beyond it.

How fast is Voyager 1 going?

About 16.92 kilometres every second, relative to the Sun, as of 18 October 2026. Its twin, Voyager 2, moves at about 15.26 kilometres per second. Voyager 1 is the faster of the two.

Is Voyager 1 still working?

Yes. As of 17 April 2026, 2 of its science instruments are on: the magnetometer and the plasma wave instrument. Its power falls a little every year, so engineers switch parts off to keep it going.

What is on the Golden Record?

Each Voyager carries a gold-plated copper disc with sounds and images of life on Earth. It holds spoken greetings in 55 languages, and music from Bach and Mozart to Chuck Berry. Symbols on its cover show where Earth is, using pulsars as landmarks.

When will Voyager 1 be one light-day from Earth?

On 18 November 2026 at 10:16:07 UTC, according to NASA. It will be the first object we have made to get that far.

How do we know?

Every number on this page, and where it comes from

Fact	Value	Certainty	Source	As of
Distance light travels in one day	25,902,068,371.2 km	Measured	NIST BIPM	20 Oct 2026
Distance to Proxima Centauri	4.2465 ly	Measured, with error	ESA Astronomy & Astrophysics ESA	1 Jan 2016
Earth's average distance from the Sun	1.0000 AU	Measured	NASA NSSDCA	1 Jan 2000
Earth's size in the Pale Blue Dot frame	0.12 px	Measured	NASA JPL	14 Feb 1990
James Webb Space Telescope's distance from Earth	1,591,864 km	Measured	NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
Juno's distance from Earth	822,906,875 km	Measured	NASA JPL NASA	31 Oct 2026
Jupiter's average distance from the Sun	5.2034 AU	Measured	NASA NSSDCA	1 Jan 2000
Languages of the spoken greetings on the Voyager Golden Record	55	Measured	NASA NASA	5 Sep 1977
Neptune's average distance from the Sun	30.0690 AU	Measured	NASA NSSDCA	1 Jan 2000
New Horizons' distance from Earth	9,914,497,539 km	Measured	NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
The International Space Station's mean height above Earth	426 km	Measured	CelesTrak NASA	18 Oct 2026
Time for light from Earth to reach Voyager 1	23 h 57 m 27 s	Measured	NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
Time for Voyager 1 to pass beyond the Oort cloud	30,000 years	Estimated	NASA	18 Oct 2026
Time for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort cloud	300 years	Estimated	NASA	18 Oct 2026
Time since Voyager 1's launch	49 y 55 d 7 h	Measured	NASA	5 Sep 1977
Time until Voyager 1 is one light-day away	18 d 07 h 30 m 28 s	Measured	NASA NASA JPL NASA NASA JPL NASA JPL	28 Oct 2026
Voyager 1 science instruments still switched on	2	Measured	NASA NASA	17 Apr 2026
Voyager 1's distance from Earth	25,856,376,318 km	Measured	NASA JPL NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
Voyager 1's distance from Earth when it took the Pale Blue Dot	6,050,000,000 km	Measured	NASA JPL NASA	14 Feb 1990
Voyager 1's distance from the Sun	25,762,357,187 km	Measured	NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
Voyager 1's distance from the Sun when it crossed the heliopause	121.6 AU	Measured	American Geophysical Union NASA JPL NASA	25 Aug 2012
Voyager 1's speed relative to the Sun	16.92 km/s	Measured	NASA JPL NASA	18 Oct 2026
Voyager 2's distance from Earth	21,627,716,697 km	Measured	NASA JPL	31 Oct 2026
Voyager 2's speed relative to the Sun	15.26 km/s	Measured	NASA JPL	20 Oct 2026

The signal we send today arrives tomorrow. What would you want it to say?