CELEBRATION OF VOYAGER 1 REACHING ONE-LIGHT-DAY MILESTONE (Planetary Soc), Nov 18, 2026, virtual, 8:00-9:00 pm ET

Voyager 1, launched in September 1977, will achieve still another milestone on November 18, 2026 when it reaches a distance of 16.09 billion miles (25.89 billion kilometers) from Earth. At that distance, it will take one light day for a signal from Earth to reach Voyager — 1 light day.  It will also take one day for a signal to return, so any communication between the Earth and the spacecraft will require two days.

Voyager 1 will reach that distance at 5:16:07 am ET on November 18.

NASA is inviting everyone to “Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light Day” after sunset on November 17 by shining a flashlight skyward and lashing V-G-R in Morse code.

The Planetary Society will host an event on November 18 at 8:00 pm ET on YouTube.

Celebrate Voyager 1’s one light-day milestone with us! This month, NASA’s Voyager 1 will become the first human-made object to travel one light-day from Earth. Join us on Nov. 18 at 8:00 p.m. ET for a special livestream in our online member community and on YouTube. Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd, Mission Manager Kareem Badaruddin, and Project Scientist Linda Spilker of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will share stories from their decades on the mission. Renowned space artist Don Davis will also join us to reveal a new work commemorating this tremendous achievement. Stay tuned for more details.

Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter and Saturn and then continued out through the solar system and entered interstellar space on August 25, 2012.  NASA is taking steps to enable continued communications with both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, as long as possible. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune before heading out of the solar system itself in a different direction. It entered interstellar space on November 5, 2018.

Find out where Voyager 1 and 2 are by visiting NASA’s Voyager website.