Live ephemeris · NASA / JPL
Almost fifty years after launch, both Voyagers are still moving — and still talking. These figures update every second, propagated from each probe's published cruise velocity. Neither will ever stop.
As of —
Outbound toward the constellation Ophiuchus — in about 40,000 years it drifts within ~1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445.
◉ Next milestone — one light-day from Earth, 18 Nov 2026.
Outbound toward the constellation Pavo — in about 42,000 years it passes within ~1.7 light-years of the star Ross 248.
◉ Next milestone — one light-day from Earth, ~Nov 2035.
Looking down on the solar system from above its plane. The Sun sits at the centre and the dashed ring is the heliopause — the edge of the Sun's magnetic bubble. Both Voyagers are now well beyond it, coasting outward in slightly different directions. Earth is in there too — its entire orbit is barely a pixel from the Sun at this scale.
Directions are the probes' real escape bearings projected onto the ecliptic; radius is to scale with the rings.
Voyager 1 left sixteen days later but took a faster route, and it has been pulling ahead ever since. Today it leads its twin by — AU — roughly — km — and the gap grows about 0.35 AU every year.
Each probe runs on three radioisotope generators — heat from decaying plutonium, turned into electricity. They began with about 470 watts and have faded by roughly 4 watts every year since. To stretch what's left, the team switches the instruments off one at a time, in an order they agreed on long ago.
“Every minute of every day, the Voyagers explore a region where no spacecraft has gone before. That also means every day could be our last.” — Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist, NASA / JPL
Two instruments still send data home: the plasma wave subsystem and the magnetometer — listening to the interstellar medium no other craft has ever reached.
The magnetic field and plasma wave instruments keep working — joined, until its 2026 shut-off, by the cosmic-ray subsystem.
Of the ten instruments each probe carried, seven have now gone quiet. The team is preparing a power-saving manoeuvre they nickname the “Big Bang” — swapping a whole group of powered devices at once for lower-draw alternatives. They'll try it on Voyager 2 first, in mid-2026, then on Voyager 1 no sooner than July. If it works, there's even a chance Voyager 1's last-silenced instrument could be switched back on — and at least one instrument could keep working into the 2030s.
Still reporting
Two small machines, still whispering home from the dark.
Built before the personal computer, launched the same summer, they crossed every outer world we knew and kept going — past the planets, past the edge of the Sun's reach, into the space between the stars. Nearly half a century on, against the cold and the distance and the thinning trickle of power, they are still talking to us.
Each carries a gilded record — a portrait of Earth, our music and our voices — sealed for whoever, or whatever, might one day find it. Long after the last instrument falls quiet, both will drift on, carrying that small hello outward for ages after we are gone.
To everyone who built them, and to everyone who has listened across these forty-nine years: thank you. And to Voyager 1 & 2 — safe travels.
Figures are propagated from published heliocentric cruise velocities (Voyager 1 ≈ 17.0 km/s, Voyager 2 ≈ 15.3 km/s), anchored to NASA/JPL reference distances in 2026. They are accurate to within a fraction of a percent — a model, not a live Deep Space Network feed. Distances are heliocentric; the Earth–probe distance varies by up to ~1 AU over a year. · Credits & legal →