Voyager 1 and 2: where they are now, where they've been, what's next

Live distances of Voyager 1 and 2, which NASA dish is talking to them right now, their paths past the giant planets, and the countdown to Voyager 1 reaching one light-day from Earth on 18 November 2026.

Right now Voyager 1 is about 25.8 billion km from Earth and Voyager 2 about 21.6 billion km: the two most distant objects humans have ever made.

Where Voyager 1 and 2 are now

Voyager 1 is in interstellar space in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, about 35 degrees north of the plane the planets orbit in, moving away from the Sun at about 61,000 km/h. Voyager 2 is heading south, towards the constellation Pavo, at about 55,000 km/h. Both left the heliosphere, the bubble of the Sun's wind: Voyager 1 on 25 August 2012 and Voyager 2 on 5 November 2018.

Who's talking to them

NASA's Deep Space Network stays in touch from three stations: Goldstone in California, Madrid in Spain and Canberra in Australia. Voyager 2 is so far south in the sky that only Canberra can see it. This page shows which dishes are talking to each Voyager right now.

Where they've been

Voyager 2 launched first, on 20 August 1977, and is still the only spacecraft to visit Uranus (January 1986) and Neptune (August 1989), after Jupiter (1979) and Saturn (1981). Voyager 1 launched on 5 September 1977, flew past Jupiter in March 1979 and Saturn in November 1980, took the Pale Blue Dot photo of Earth in 1990 and became the most distant human-made object in 1998.

What's next

On 18 November 2026 Voyager 1 becomes the first human-made object one light-day from Earth. Their power supplies lose about 4 watts a year, so NASA is switching instruments off one by one, hoping to keep at least one working into the 2030s. In about 300 years Voyager 1 reaches the inner edge of the Oort Cloud, and in about 40,000 years it will be closer to the star AC+79 3888 than to the Sun.