Voyager 1 is about to become the first human-made object a full light-day from Earth
What is a light-day? The milestone Voyager 1 is closing in on
On November 18, 2026, Voyager 1 will sit roughly 16 billion miles (26 billion kilometers) from Earth — the distance light covers in 24 hours. Launched in 1977, the probe has flown for nearly 50 years to reach this marker, which no other spacecraft has touched. Its twin, Voyager 2, won't hit one light-day until November 2035, since it took a different path past Uranus and Neptune.
Nothing in the universe travels faster than light.
- MisterMunchkin
Maybe the answer to the Fermi paradox is that the universe is so big that you simply never get anywhere.
No message you send out ever gets far enough for anyone to see it. No ship you send out ever reaches another system. It’s just a big empty void.
You stay in your own lame system, browsing lame terrestrial memes and never escape.
- polalavik
Free space pathloss for rf signals is proportional to 1/r^2, absolutely bonkers we can get anything from voyager.
- robotresearcher
> the spacecraft, in flight since 1977, is cruising at nearly 38,000 mph (61,000 kph) through the vacuum of space,
The page takes great pains to explain things, but omits a frame of reference for this speed. I’m guessing it’s sun-relative, but it could be relative to its take-off on Earth. Does anyone know?
- zomtorg
And the closest known galaxy to the Milky Way, Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, is just 25,000 light-years away - it's almost incomprehensible how vast the universe is!
- Animats
Voyager I is leaving the solar system again! [1]