Voyager 1 Reaches One Light-Day From Earth: NASA Plans Celebration

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft will become the first human-made object to sit one light-day from Earth on Wednesday, November 18, 2026, nearly half a century after it launched. In an announcement on November 10, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said it will mark the milestone with a worldwide public light event on November 17 and a livestreamed discussion with the mission team on November 19.

What is happening on November 18?

On November 18, Voyager 1 will be more than 16 billion miles (25.9 billion km) from Earth, according to JPL. That is the distance light covers in 24 hours. EarthSky, citing NASA figures, puts it at about 173 astronomical units, or 173 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

In practical terms, any command sent from Earth will take a full day to reach the spacecraft, and Voyager’s answer will need another day to come back. Engineers who send an instruction on Monday will not know whether it worked until Wednesday.

Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977. EarthSky calculates that the journey to the one light-day mark took 49 years, 2 months and 11 days. The probe flew past Jupiter and Saturn before heading out of the solar system, and it has held the title of most distant human-made object since 1998.

How can you take part?

NASA has called the public event “Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day”. After sunset on Tuesday, November 17, local time, people anywhere in the world are invited to point a smartphone, tablet or flashlight at the sky and flash “VGR”, Voyager’s three-letter call sign, in Morse code.

The pattern is:

• V: dot-dot-dot-dash
• G: dash-dash-dot
• R: dot-dash-dot

JPL said the signals from many people together are meant to form a symbolic ring of golden light around the planet, a nod to the golden records both Voyagers carry. Participants are asked to film or photograph their signal and post it on social media tagging @NASA. Popular Science reported that NASA has also built a web page that flashes the code automatically, so people do not need to tap it out by hand. NASA described the idea as “A simple act. A shared moment.”

What is the November 19 Voyager event?

JPL will host a moderated discussion at noon EST (9 a.m. PST) on Thursday, November 19, in its von Kármán Auditorium in Southern California. It is the same room where JPL briefed reporters during the Voyagers’ grand tour of the outer planets. The event will stream on NASA Live.

The panel, according to JPL, includes:

• Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
• Jonathan Lunine, JPL chief scientist and Caltech planetary science professor
• Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL
• Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL
• Jamie Rankin, Voyager deputy project scientist at Princeton University

They will cover the status of both spacecraft, the science coming back from interstellar space and the difficulty of running decades-old probes so far away. A question-and-answer session follows, along with a preview of a NASA+ Voyager documentary planned for 2027, the mission’s 50th anniversary.

Why does the one light-day milestone matter?

The milestone is symbolic, as nothing on board changes when the spacecraft crosses the line. But it shows how far a 1970s machine has gone. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were built to use a rare alignment of the outer planets that happens only about every 176 years. Both were expected to last a few years. Instead, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, the edge of the bubble of particles and magnetic fields blown out by the Sun, in 2012. Voyager 2 followed in 2018 on a different path.

Both probes still return measurements from beyond the heliosphere, giving scientists direct readings from a region no other working spacecraft has reached. NASA’s Deep Space Network, managed by JPL, handles communications with them.

How much longer can Voyager 1 last?

Power is the main limit. NASA has shut down systems on both spacecraft over the years to conserve their shrinking power supply, and most instruments are now off. EarthSky notes that the Low-Energy Charged Particle instrument on Voyager 1 was turned off in April 2026 to save power. Popular Science reported that after recent equipment changes, NASA expects Voyager 1 to keep working for at least a few more years.

Voyager 2 is about 2 billion miles closer to Earth and is not expected to reach one light-day until around November 2035, according to EarthSky.

What happens next?

The public light event takes place on the evening of November 17, the crossing itself on November 18 and the JPL discussion on November 19. Voyager 1 will keep moving away from the Sun at roughly the same pace, so the one-way light time will keep growing past 24 hours for as long as the probe can still talk to Earth.

For more deep space news, read our report on NASA’s ESCAPADE probes slingshotting past Earth toward Mars.