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NASA: Voyager 1 to pass one light-day from the Sun on Nov. 18
NASA said Voyager 1, launched in 1977, will cross one light-day from the Sun on Nov. 18, 2026, about 16.1 billion miles out, in its November Night Sky Notes.
NASA said Voyager 1 will cross one light-day from the Sun on Nov. 18, 2026, about 16.1 billion miles out and 49 years after launch1.
The agency published the milestone in its November Night Sky Notes, which recap the 1977 launches of Voyager 1 and 2 during a once-every-175-year alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune1. NASA said the twins used gravity assists for a Grand Tour of the outer planets before going separate ways at Saturn1.
Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, where the solar wind meets interstellar space, in August 2012, and Voyager 2 did so in November 2018, NASA said1. At the time of the note, NASA said the Canberra Deep Space Network antenna tracked Voyager 1 at 25.80 billion kilometers, just over 16 billion miles1.
NASA described a light-day as a measure of distance, not time, and said each spacecraft carries a 12-inch Golden Record with greetings in 55 languages, music, images and other sounds from Earth, plus a cover that marks the Sun's location relative to 14 pulsars1. The agency pointed readers to tracking pages and classroom activities on gravity assists and light-time1.
Sources
NASAOfficial source