Voyager 1 Launched
NASA launched Voyager 1, which later became the first human-made object to leave the solar system
September 05, 1977
The Farthest Traveler
Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977, from Cape Canaveral with a mission to study Jupiter and Saturn. It completed those tasks brilliantly — sending back stunning close-up images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and Saturn's rings — and then just kept going. Today Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object ever created, more than 23 billion kilometers from Earth and still transmitting data back to NASA.
Into Interstellar Space
In 2012, NASA confirmed that Voyager 1 had crossed the heliopause — the boundary where the Sun's solar wind gives way to interstellar space. It became the first human-made object to leave our solar system. The signals it sends back travel at the speed of light and still take over 22 hours to reach Earth. The spacecraft runs on nuclear power from decaying plutonium and is expected to keep transmitting until around 2025.
The Golden Record
Attached to Voyager 1 is a gold-plated copper disc containing sounds and images representing life on Earth — greetings in 55 languages, music from Bach to Chuck Berry, and photographs of humans, animals, and landscapes. It was Carl Sagan's idea. If any intelligent civilization ever finds it, they will have a snapshot of humanity as it existed in 1977. Use the date calculator to see how many days Voyager has been travelling.