Missions · Space Codex
Voyager 1
Launched in 1977 for a Jupiter and Saturn flyby, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012 and on 18 Nov 2026 becomes the first human-made object one light-day from Earth.
First spacecraft in interstellar space
At a glance
Key points
- First human-made object one light-day from Earth (18 Nov 2026)
- Crossed the heliopause at about 122 AU in Aug 2012
- Carries the Golden Record of sounds and images from Earth
Why one light-day matters
Light covers 25.9 billion km in a day. Voyager 1 reaches that distance from Earth after 49 years of coasting at roughly 17 km/s. Every command the team sends now waits a full day to arrive, and the reply needs another day to come back.
Crossing the heliopause
In August 2012 the plasma density around the probe jumped about forty-fold. The solar wind had given way to the denser, colder gas between the stars. No other spacecraft had measured that boundary directly; Voyager 2 confirmed it at a different point in 2018.
Running on less
Its plutonium power supply loses a few watts every year, so the team has switched off heaters and instruments one by one to keep the remaining field, particle and plasma-wave sensors working.
What we still don't know
How the heliosphere is shaped downstream, whether it trails a long tail or is blunt and compact, remains open. Voyager 1 samples a single path through the boundary.
About this view
The model is from NASA 3D Resources. The high-gain antenna points home; from this distance Earth sits within a third of a degree of the Sun, which is just the brightest star in the sky. Sunlight here is about 1/30,000 as strong as at Earth.
Missions
- 1977–
Voyager 1
NASAActiveJupiter 1979, Saturn 1980; interstellar space since 25 Aug 2012.
- 1977–
The only spacecraft to visit Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989); interstellar since 5 Nov 2018.
First-hand · our 3D model
How we render it
The Voyager 1 destination puts you beside the probe about 173 au from the Sun, where NASA projects it will be one light-day from Earth on 18 November 2026. The sky around it is the same real star catalogue and Milky Way panorama as every other view. The Sun is just the brightest star: its white 5,772 K disc is 11″ across from here, far below a pixel, so only its glare carries it.
The high-gain antenna points home, towards the Sun, which from this distance sits within 0.33° of Earth. The probe is lit by one hard, faint light from that direction plus a trace of starlight, and holds almost still with only a tiny wobble, as a craft steadied by thrusters does. On the lightest quality setting the probe is not drawn.
The model is from NASA 3D Resources, loaded on demand as a Draco-compressed file and released when you leave the destination. It carries no NASA insignia, and its use implies no endorsement. The scene has no environment map for metal to reflect, so metalness is capped to keep metal parts from reading black.
Related entries
- Voyager 2The only visitor to Uranus and Neptune
- The heliosphereThe bubble blown by the solar wind
- Oort cloudThe Solar System's distant icy shell
- The SunG2V main-sequence star · 4.6 billion years old
Sources
- NASA Science: Voyager 1: what is a light-day? (opens in a new tab)
- NASA Science: Voyager interstellar mission (opens in a new tab)
- NASA Science: Oort cloud facts (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed against these sources. Built from public NASA, ESA and JPL data; not affiliated with or endorsed by any agency.