NASA’s Voyager 1 will reach a one light-day distance from Earth, an extraordinary milestone marking 16 billion miles of exploration and nearly fifty years of discovery on November 18, 2026, at 2:16am PT. This is the farthest a human-made object has ever ventured. This means even traveling at the speed of light – more than 186,000 miles a second – it would take a whole day to reach Voyager 1 from Earth. It has taken Voyager 1 over 49 years, traveling at about 33,000 miles per hour, to reach this distance.

To commemorate this milestone, the Department of Physics and Astronomy invites the public to hear from distinguished speaker Bill Kurth, a co-investigator on the Voyager Plasma Wave Investigation and longtime member of the Voyager science team, to learn about Voyager's impressive legacy. Following Bill's talk, we will gather outside to shine lights upward as part of a global tribute. By joining communities around the world in this shared moment, we honor Voyager 1's remarkable journey and celebrate nearly five decades of exploration, discovery, and humanity's enduring curiosity about the universe.