NASA's Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 14 Nov, 21:56 · Archive

NASA's Voyager 1 has become the first spacecraft to travel one light-day from Earth, reaching the milestone on Wednesday after travelling more than 16 billion miles since its launch in 1977. Radio signals from the probe now take exactly 24 hours to reach Earth travelling at the speed of light. The spacecraft continues to relay scientific data back to Earth, including readings on magnetic fields, pressure, dust and cosmic rays, despite being over 49 years old.

Voyager 1 is travelling at roughly 36,000 to 38,000 miles per hour through interstellar space—the region between star systems—which it entered in 2012. Its twin, Voyager 2, launched two weeks earlier in 1977, will not reach the one light-day milestone until 2035. Both probes are kept active by a skeleton team of NASA engineers who send commands roughly once a week. In October, the team briefly lost communication with Voyager 1, though the cause remains unclear.

NASA project manager Suzanne Dodd described Voyager 1 as "a national treasure" and "really extraordinary". The probe completed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980 respectively, while Voyager 2 visited those two planets plus Uranus and Neptune. NASA estimates it will take 18,000 years for Voyager 1 to travel a full light-year and over 36,000 years before it comes near another star.

How it is being reported

• NASA’s Voyager 1 to hit new space distance record of one light-dayThe probe was launched in 1977, and it continues to relay space-related data back to a team of NASA scientists.Al Jazeera · 14 Nov, 15:14
• NASA's Voyager 1 closes in on light-day away from Earth in new distance recordNASA's Voyager 1 is nearly one light-day from Earth - more than 16 billion miles away - as it heads ever deeper into space following its launch 49 years agoThe Mirror · 14 Nov, 14:26

In this story: NASA · Voyager 1 · Voyager 2 · Suzanne Dodd · Earth

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