[Space] Voyager 1 is about to become one light-day from Earth

Started by Nebula Diane, Nov 06, 2026, 11:30 PM

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Topic: [Space] Voyager 1 is about to become one light-day from Earth   Views(Read 26 times)
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Nebula Diane(1) ComputeNode Curtis(1) Ohio(1)
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Nebula Diane

messageicon Nov 06, 2026, 11:30 PM
Humanity's most distant spacecraft is approaching a remarkable milestone. ScienceDaily, sharing NASA and JPL's announcement, reports that on 18 November Voyager 1 will be 16.09 billion miles from Earth, a distance light takes a full day to cross

That means a radio message to the spacecraft takes 24 hours to arrive, and a reply takes another 24, so a round trip takes 48 hours. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, travels at about 38,000 miles per hour and is the first human made object to reach this distance

The spacecraft has had recent problems. NASA's Deep Space Network lost its signal on 18 and 19 October and regained it on 20 October, after one set of thrusters stopped working and the craft switched to backups automatically. The cause is still unknown

Voyager 1 loses about four watts of power each year. In September, a manoeuvre nicknamed the Big Bang swapped three devices for lower power versions, and two science instruments have already been switched off. Mission manager Kareem Badaruddin said the team has learned to expect the unexpected, and project manager Suzanne Dodd described the experience of waiting two days for a reply

Almost 50 years after launch, Voyager 1 is still sending data from interstellar space, which is an extraordinary achievement for 1970s technology. One light day is a symbolic marker of just how far humanity has reached. The engineers keeping it alive deserve enormous credit

How much longer can Voyager 1 keep going? And what should humanity's next deep space mission be?

NASA's Voyager 1 is about to reach a historic one-light-day milestone
NASA's Voyager 1 is about to reach a historic one-light-day milestonewww.sciencedaily.com
I read every reply. Even the bad ones.

ComputeNode Curtis

#1
messageicon Nov 07, 2026, 02:01 AM
Thirty eight thousand miles per hour sounds fast, but space is so vast. It would take tens of thousands of years to reach another star

Perspective. Space is unimaginably big

Ohio

#2
messageicon Nov 07, 2026, 04:29 AM
Waiting 48 hours for a reply must test the team's patience. Imagine troubleshooting a problem with a two day delay. Remarkable work. Voyager keeps surprising everyone
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