Voyager 1 now
Where is Voyager 1 now
from Earth. Light covers this distance in 23 h 59 min 26 s.
Voyager 1 is 25,891,970,310 kilometers from Earth. Light covers this distance in 23 h 59 min.
Until one light-day
4d10h42min54s
On November 18, 2026, at 10:16:07 UTC the spacecraft will be exactly 24 light-hours from Earth.
Computed from JPL Horizons, data of Nov 11, 2026. NASA gives the same moment. As of Nov 13, 2026, 23:33 UTC.
The path from Earth to today
Real positions of the planets and the spacecraft on the chosen date. Rotate the map, zoom in, or replay the whole journey from launch.
from the Sun
from Earth
light takes
- path to 1992: tracking, flight plan before 1981
- JPL prediction after 1992
- ahead
- one light-day sphere around Earth
Source: JPL Horizons, JPL planet orbits. As of Nov 11, 2026.
The numbers right now
From the Sun
172.35 au
One astronomical unit is the distance from Earth to the Sun.
Source: JPL Horizons. As of Nov 11, 2026.
Signal there and back
47 h 58 min
This is how long the mission team waits for the spacecraft to answer.
Source: JPL Horizons, NASA mission blog. As of Nov 11, 2026.
What is a light-day
A light-day is the distance light travels in 24 hours. It is easy to work out: multiply the speed of light by the number of seconds in a day.
Radio signals travel at the speed of light. So from November 18 a command from Earth will take more than a day to reach the spacecraft, and its reply will take just as long to come back.
The spacecraft itself will notice nothing: nothing around it will change. It is a mark of distance that no human-made object has reached before.
299,792.458 km/s × 86,400 s
25,902,068,371 km
NASA news stories sometimes give 25.89 billion km: that is 16.09 billion miles, rounded.
Source: NASA mission status, NASA mission blog. As of Nov 11, 2026.
Why the distance sometimes shrinks
Voyager 1 moves away from the Sun at almost 17 km every second. Earth circles the Sun faster, at about 30 km/s, and for part of the year it is chasing the spacecraft.
That is why the distance will shrink slightly in spring 2027. It will be smallest on April 24: light will take a day and another minute and a half. It will never drop below a day again.
- Nov 18, 2026: exactly one day
- Apr 24, 2027: a day and 1.5 min
The wave on the chart is Earth moving around the Sun. Our calculation from JPL Horizons.
Source: JPL Horizons, NASA FAQ, NASA Planetary Fact Sheet. As of Nov 11, 2026.
What is measured here and what is calculated
Measured
- The spacecraft's motion from 1981 to April 24, 1992. JPL built this stretch from tracking data; April 24, 1992 was the last time ground stations measured the spacecraft with a two-way link.
Calculated
- JPL reconstructed the stretch from launch to 1981 from the mission design, with rough accuracy. It is a calculation, not a measurement.
- Everything after 1992, including today's position. It is a JPL prediction, refit in 2022.
- JPL puts the uncertainty in the direction to the spacecraft in 2030 at 1.7 arcseconds in right ascension and 1.5 in declination. By our conversion that is more than 200,000 km across. JPL does not publish the uncertainty of the distance itself.
- So the last digits of the counter show a model, not a measurement. NASA and this page compute the light-day moment from the same model.
How this page computes
- Your browser computes the numbers from a JPL Horizons table with a one-day step. Between table points the difference from Horizons itself is within 40 m.
- The page never calls Horizons itself: JPL's rules do not allow embedding its API in websites, so the table is prepared in advance.
- The distance is geometric: from the center of Earth to the spacecraft at the same instant. This is how NASA counts it.
- Planets on the map follow JPL's approximate formulas. We checked them against exact positions: the difference is within 0.07°.
- There are no drawings or textures on the map: only orbits, the trajectory and dots.
Source: JPL Horizons, JPL planet orbits, JPL API rules. As of Nov 11, 2026.
The whole story is in the episode
How a spacecraft built to last five years has been working for forty-nine, and what is said in Ukrainian on its golden record.
An episode of the YouTube channel Між зорями, in Ukrainian.
In short
Where is Voyager 1 now?
In interstellar space, about 25.9 billion km from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. The exact number for this moment is at the top of the page.
When will Voyager 1 be one light-day from Earth?
On November 18, 2026, at 10:16 UTC, which is 5:16 a.m. EST. NASA gives this moment, and it matches our calculation from JPL Horizons.
Has Voyager 1 left the Solar System?
Not yet. On August 25, 2012, it left the heliosphere, but according to NASA it will take about 300 years to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and about 30,000 years to fly beyond it.
How long does a signal take to reach Voyager 1?
About 24 hours one way. A reply to a command comes back in roughly two days.
Where does the data come from?
Positions and distances come from the JPL Horizons system. Mission dates and facts come from NASA pages. The full list of sources is below.
Sources
- Horizons System, Voyager 1 (-31). NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics. positions, distances, speed, trajectory description; queried Nov 11, 2026.
- Where Are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 Now?. NASA Science. the light-day moment, 25.902 billion km; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Voyager. NASA Science. event countdown; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- NASA's Voyager 1 Conserves Power, Resolves Brief Communications Pause. NASA Science, Voyager blog, Oct. 29, 2026. speed, signal time, what changes for the spacecraft; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Voyager 1. NASA Science. dates of launch, flybys and leaving the heliosphere; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Voyager: Frequently Asked Questions. NASA Science. direction of travel, the Oort Cloud, why distance counters sometimes run backwards; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Voyager 1's Pale Blue Dot. NASA Science. the photograph of February 14, 1990; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- 40 Years Ago: Voyager 1 Explores Saturn. NASA History. leaving the plane of the planets; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Planetary Voyage. NASA Science. the lifetime the spacecraft were built for: five years; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Approximate Positions of the Planets. NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics. formulas for planet positions; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- Planetary Fact Sheet. NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Earth's orbital speed; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
- SSD API Service: Fair Use Policy. NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics. why the data is prepared in advance; accessed Nov 11, 2026.
This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, JPL or ESA. NASA/JPL-Caltech data is used for reference.