MrNotLovely

So you’ve probably seen a lot of posts and articles about Voyager 1 reaching the one light-day milestone on November 18, 2026. What are the _next_ milestones for the Voyager probes? While Earth and even Jupiter fade into the background and become less relevant for the Voyagers, the Sun is still the dominant gravitational force, and will remain so for hundreds of years. On February 4 next year, Voyager 1 will reach the one light-day distance _from the Sun._ Why is this date different? Because of the position of Earth in its orbit around the Sun. Earth was a little farther away (orbiting around the ‘backside’ as seen from Voyager 1) and so the distance to Earth was a little greater in November. For this next milestone, you will notice that the order is reversed (Sun first, Earth second), and now you can figure out why that is! On August 11, 2028 Voyager 2 will be 150 times as far from the Sun as the Earth, or 150 Astronomical Units (AU). It will be 150 AU from the Earth five weeks later on September 18, 2028. The milestone after that? On January 6 2029, the two Voyagers will be 20 BILLION miles apart. I have milestones tagged out to 2100 (the current limit to the HORIZONS system for the Voyagers), but that’s for another post… #Voyager1 #OneLightDay