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Voyager 1 and 2 speed and distance from Sun The Pale Blue Dot image showing Earth from 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) appearing as a tiny dot (the bluish-white speck approximately halfway down the light band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. [45]
Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but along a shorter and faster trajectory that was designed to provide an optimal flyby of Saturn's moon Titan, [21] which was known to be quite large and to possess a dense atmosphere. This encounter sent Voyager 1 out of the plane of the ecliptic, ending its planetary science mission. [22]
Voyager 2 was also to explore Jupiter and Saturn, but on a trajectory that would have the option of continuing on to Uranus and Neptune, or being redirected to Titan as a backup for Voyager 1. Upon successful completion of Voyager 1's objectives, Voyager 2 would get a mission extension to send the probe on towards Uranus and Neptune. [13]
As Voyager 1 and its twin probe, Voyager 2, have aged, the mission team has slowly turned off nonessential systems on both spacecraft to conserve power, including heaters. As a result, components ...
Voyager 1 and its twin, the Voyager 2 probe, each launched in 1977 on missions to study the outer solar system. As it sped through the cosmos, Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn, studying the ...
Voyager 1 is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, while its twin Voyager 2 has traveled more than 12 billion miles (20 billion ...
Although other probes were launched first, Voyager 1 has achieved a higher speed and overtaken all others. Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 a few months after launch, on December 19, 1977. [12] It overtook Pioneer 11 in 1981, [13] and then Pioneer 10—becoming the probe farthest from the Sun—on February 17, 1998. [14]
The probes, which continue to travel billions of miles away, have both reached interstellar space – Voyager 1 in 2012 and Voyager 2 in 2018, according to NA S A.