Voyager 1 will only be one light-day away from Earth by 2050, while Neptune is 4.16 light-hours away. Voyager 1 and 2 are expected to enter interstellar space in 2015 and carry a “gold disc” with greetings and instructions.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, will have drifted only about one light-day away from Earth by 2050. While this sounds extreme, Neptune, the farthest planet from Earth in the solar system, is only about 4.16 light-hours away. Voyager 1 covers approximately 330 million miles each year.
Learn more about the Voyager spacecraft:
Voyager 1 and its sister ship Voyager 2 were originally intended to gather intelligence on Jupiter and Saturn, but the mission has been extended. Now the two spacecraft are traveling through the solar system’s boundary, called the heliosheath, and are expected to pass into interstellar space – the area between the solar system and other star systems in the galaxy – around 2015.
Each Voyager craft carries a disc called a “gold disc,” which is a gold-plated copper phonograph disc containing greetings in a variety of languages, illustrated instructions for playing the disc, and a drawing of a hydrogen atom, among the other things.
As of 2011, Voyager 1 was the farthest man-made object from Earth, having passed Pioneer 10 on February 17, 1998.
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