Launched in the summer of 1977, NASA's Voyager mission to explore the outer planets transformed humanity's understanding of the solar system. With pioneering technology and ambitious goals, the mission transformed humanity's understanding of the solar system.
The identical spacecraft were the first and only human-made objects to reach interstellar space—Voyager 1 doing so in 2012 and Voyager 2 in 2018—after capturing breathtaking images and critical measurements that deepened our knowledge of the solar system.
Congress initially approved the mission to explore just two planets within a five-year timeline, but it was expanded to four planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—as well as 48 moons.
Both probes carry a copy of the Golden Record, a message to the stars that attempts to condense humanity's culture into a phonograph record.
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NASA's DSN is a global system of giant radio antennas that receive data from faraway spacecraft like Voyager 1 and the James Webb Space Telescope. It is sensitive enough to detect a signal as weak as a single light bulb from billions of miles away.
This archive includes the many steps it took to put together each Voyager probe. Photos focus on individual parts, like the 8-track tape deck, the large dish-shaped antenna, and its long arm magnetometer boom.
The Voyager Interstellar Mission extended beyond the original planetary flybys to explore the solar system's edge and beyond. Voyager 1 and 2 crossed the heliosheath—the boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium—in 2012 and 2018, respectively.
On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe took the farthest photo of Earth ever captured. Earth appears so small in the image that it takes up less than a single pixel out of 640,000 in the photo's frame.
These instruments track magnetic fields, solar wind particles, radio emissions from the heliopause, and hydrogen levels in the outer heliosphere. Even though each Voyager sends data at just 160 bits per second, NASA receives 6–8 hours of tracking data daily.
Each DSN complex has multiple large, sensitive antennas that can receive weak radio signals from far-off spacecraft and send commands back to them. Their amplifiers are cooled to just above absolute zero to reduce electronic noise.
Housed aboard Voyager 1 and 2, each record serves as a time capsule of human culture and a peaceful introduction to any intelligent life. Even if never played, the records can outlast humanity and travel through space for a billion years.
In November 2023, Voyager 1 began sending unusable data due to a stuck bit in a decades-old memory chip. After months of investigation, engineers managed to reroute the faulty code to a new memory location, restoring functionality in April 2024.
This infographic leads users through the entire Voyager mission timeline, starting at its conception and moving through launch, to each destination, and finally, the Voyagers' crossing into interstellar space.
Beneath its frozen crust, Europa hides a salty ocean heated by tidal forces from Jupiter. This environment may resemble Earth's deep-sea hydrothermal vents and have allowed for the development of life over billions of years.
Since our ancient human relatives began using stone tools to perform tasks, humans have harnessed scientific knowledge and new technologies to expand the boundaries of our understanding of the natural world. From quantum computing and microplastics to artificial intelligence and memory, explore these topics and more with our concise yet informative overviews and expert-curated resources.