NASA says its long-running Voyager 1 spacecraft is on track to reach an unprecedented distance in 2026 when it becomes the first probe to travel one light-day from Earth.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is the farthest spacecraft from the planet, currently about 15.8 billion miles from home as it travels through interstellar space.

One light-day is roughly 16 billion miles, a distance requiring 24 hours for a signal traveling at the speed of light to reach the spacecraft, according to Suzy Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Each spacecraft still has three working instruments to study the far reaches of the sun’s protective bubble. This region, known as the heliosphere, is a vast envelope of magnetic fields and particles extending well beyond Pluto’s orbit. Vo

See Full Page